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The loss of skin integrity is inevitable in life. Wound healing is a necessary sequence of events to reconstitute the body’s integrity against potentially harmful environmental agents and restore homeostasis. Attempts to improve cutaneous wound healing are therefore as old as humanity itself. Furthermore, nowadays, targeting defective wound healing is of utmost importance in an aging society with underlying diseases such as diabetes and vascular insufficiencies being on the rise. Because chronic wounds’ etiology and specific traits differ, there is widespread polypragmasia in targeting non-healing conditions. Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (ROS/RNS) are an overarching theme accompanying wound healing and its biological stages. ROS are signaling agents generated by phagocytes to inactivate pathogens. Although ROS/RNS’s central role in the biology of wound healing has long been appreciated, it was only until the recent decade that these agents were explicitly used to target defective wound healing using gas plasma technology. Gas plasma is a physical state of matter and is a partially ionized gas operated at body temperature which generates a plethora of ROS/RNS simultaneously in a spatiotemporally controlled manner. Animal models of wound healing have been vital in driving the development of these wound healing-promoting technologies, and this review summarizes the current knowledge and identifies open ends derived from in vivo wound models under gas plasma therapy. While gas plasma-assisted wound healing in humans has become well established in Europe, veterinary medicine is an emerging field with great potential to improve the lives of suffering animals.
Für den zukünftigen Einsatz von Niedertemperaturplasma in Bereichen der Medizin müssen potentielle genotoxische Risiken von Plasma ausgeschlossen werden. Bisherige Risikoanalysen sind durch die unterschiedlich existierenden Plasmaquellen erschwert, die in den energetischen Einstellungen und Konzentrationen der reaktiven Sauerstoffspezies (ROS) variieren können. Zur Untersuchung des mutagenen Risikopotentials von Argonplasma, erzeugt mit den Plasma-Jets kINPen MED und kINPen 09, wurde auf dem Micronucleustest am angebrüteten Hühnerei (HET-MN), der eine Alternativmethode zwischen in-vitro und in-vivo Tests ist, zurückgegriffen. Die Plasmabehandlung mit Argongas erfolgte in unterschiedlichen Behandlungszeiten am 8. Bebrütungstag auf der inneren Membran des Hühnerembryos. Nach der Blutentnahme am 11. Tag, wurde das Blut im Blutausstrich auf das Vorhandensein von Micronuclei (MN) untersucht. Die gezählten MN der definitiven Erythrozyten (E II) dienten zur Bestimmung der Genotoxizität (MNE II). Die Ergebnisse der Plasmabehandlung mit dem kINPen MED ergaben in der Höchstdosis von einer Behandlungszeit von 10 min keine erhöhten MNE II Werte, obwohl die akute Toxizität bei > 40 % lag. Mit dem kINPen 09 konnten bei einer maximalen Behandlungsdauer von 2,5 min ebenfalls keine erhöhten MNE II Häufigkeiten ermittelt werden. Möglicherweise haben die im Hühnerembryo vorkommenden Abwehr- und Reparatursysteme gegenüber ROS das negative Ergebnis beeinflusst.
Multiple evidence in animal models and in humans suggest a beneficial role of cold physical
plasma in wound treatment. Yet, risk assessment studies are important to further foster therapeutic
advancement and acceptance of cold plasma in clinics. Accordingly, we investigated the long-term
side effects of repetitive plasma treatment over 14 consecutive days in a rodent full-thickness ear
wound model. Subsequently, animals were housed for 350 days and sacrificed thereafter. In blood,
systemic changes of the pro-inflammatory cytokines interleukin 1β and tumor necrosis factor α
were absent. Similarly, tumor marker levels of α-fetoprotein and calcitonin remained unchanged.
Using quantitative PCR, the expression levels of several cytokines and tumor markers in liver,
lung, and skin were found to be similar in the control and treatment group as well. Likewise,
histological and immunohistochemical analysis failed to detect abnormal morphological changes
and the presence of tumor markers such as carcinoembryonic antigen, α-fetoprotein, or the neighbor
of Punc 11. Absence of neoplastic lesions was confirmed by non-invasive imaging methods such as
anatomical magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography-computed tomography.
Our results suggest that the beneficial effects of cold plasma in wound healing come without apparent
side effects including tumor formation or chronic inflammation.
AbstractPlasma medicine refers to the application of nonequilibrium plasmas at approximately body temperature, for therapeutic purposes. Nonequilibrium plasmas are weakly ionized gases which contain charged and neutral species and electric fields, and emit radiation, particularly in the visible and ultraviolet range. Medically-relevant cold atmospheric pressure plasma (CAP) sources and devices are usually dielectric barrier discharges and nonequilibrium atmospheric pressure plasma jets. Plasma diagnostic methods and modelling approaches are used to characterize the densities and fluxes of active plasma species and their interaction with surrounding matter. In addition to the direct application of plasma onto living tissue, the treatment of liquids like water or physiological saline by a CAP source is performed in order to study specific biological activities. A basic understanding of the interaction between plasma and liquids and bio-interfaces is essential to follow biological plasma effects. Charged species, metastable species, and other atomic and molecular reactive species first produced in the main plasma ignition are transported to the discharge afterglow to finally be exposed to the biological targets. Contact with these liquid-dominated bio-interfaces generates other secondary reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (ROS, RNS). Both ROS and RNS possess strong oxidative properties and can trigger redox-related signalling pathways in cells and tissue, leading to various impacts of therapeutic relevance. Dependent on the intensity of plasma exposure, redox balance in cells can be influenced in a way that oxidative eustress leads to stimulation of cellular processes or oxidative distress leads to cell death. Currently, clinical CAP application is realized mainly in wound healing. The use of plasma in cancer treatment (i.e. plasma oncology) is a currently emerging field of research. Future perspectives and challenges in plasma medicine are mainly directed towards the control and optimization of CAP devices, to broaden and establish its medical applications, and to open up new plasma-based therapies in medicine.