A review of therapeutic angiogenesis and consideration of its potential applications to plastic and reconstructive surgery

The use of exogenous agents to stimulate the growth of new blood vessels in to ischaemic tissue is a potentially revolutionary therapy in a wide variet y of clinical specialties. Therapeutic angiogenesis research has been mostl y confined to ischaemia of the heart and the lower limb. There has been rel atively little research into the potential applications of the technique to plastic, reconstructive and burns surgery. In this paper, relevant publish ed work is reviewed and potential applications of therapeutic angiogenesis to our specialty are considered. (C) 2001 The British Association of Plasti c Surgeons.