T. Murashita et al., ACCELERATION OF GRANULATION-TISSUE INGROWTH BY HYALURONIC-ACID IN ARTIFICIAL SKIN, British Journal of Plastic Surgery, 49(1), 1996, pp. 58-63
Hyaluronic acid (HA), which is known to play an important role in woun
d healing, was incorporated in an artificial skin material and studied
for its potential to create a wound bed which would support a skin gr
aft. Collagen sponge based artificial skin was soaked in 0.3% HA in ph
osphate buffered saline and grafted onto skin defects in rats. Control
grafts were soaked in normal saline solution. HA incorporated implant
s and control implants were simultaneously grafted onto wounds made on
either side of the spine. To examine the effect of HA incorporation,
the percentage area of cellular tuft infiltration and the number of ca
pillaries present in the graft matrix were evaluated at 7 and 14 days
after the operation. At postoperative day 7, there was a statistically
significant difference in the number of capillaries in the matrix of
the experimental versus the control implants. There was no difference
in the percentage area of cellular tuft infiltration. At postoperative
day 14, all implants exhibited better ingrowth of granulation tissue
than at day 7. The differences between the experimental and control im
plants were statistically significant with respect to both the percent
age area of cellular tuft infiltration and the number of capillaries.
It is therefore concluded that in artificial skin HA incorporation acc
elerates the ingrowth of granulation tissue, making a more suitable gr
aft bed.