New healing method for chronic wounds

Ana Goldscheider studied journalism and corporate communication in Hamburg and is now completing additional training as an editor. In a medical editorial office, she writes texts for print magazines and, among other things.

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One substance has shown promising results in a study on chronic wounds: cataplasm. But what is it and how does the method work?

Many chronic wounds caused by diabetic foot syndrome can heal faster with cold plasma treatment.This is confirmed by a study at the Heart and Diabetes Center in North Rhine-Westphalia in Bad Oeynhausen and at the Karlsburg Clinic in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In the study, plasma treatment was carried out in addition to standard therapy, the authors write in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Jama Network Open).

The method has already been used

Some medical professionals are already using cold plasma to stimulate the healing process in chronic wounds and to bring about faster wound closure. According to the authors, 62 wounds caused by the diabetic foot in 43 inpatients were examined in the study. Despite standard therapy, the wounds showed no signs of healing for three weeks.

The plasma used has nothing to do with the liquid, cell-free component of the blood of the same name. In this case, a fourth state of aggregation is referred to as plasma - in addition to solid, liquid and gaseous. In the experiment, the noble gas argon was put into this state.

Cold plasma was more effective than placebo

The patients were divided into two groups of 31 wounds each. After 14 days of treatment, the wound surface area in the wounds treated with cold plasma had reduced by an average of 69.5 percent. In the placebo group, the reduction was 44.8 percent. With cold plasma treatment, 55 percent more wound area was closed than with standard treatment alone, as it was said.

The cold plasma treatment is painless and well tolerated. No side effects occurred in the study. The patients should be observed for five years in order to be able to evaluate the long-term safety of the treatment.

The differences in the microbial load on the wounds between the two groups were not statistically significant. The head of research at the Diabetes Center Bad Oeynhausen and first author of the study, Bernd Stratmann, said: "Atmospheric cold plasma has an independent wound healing-activating effect that cannot be explained by the antimicrobial effect of the plasma alone." (ag / dpa)

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