A comparative study of healing of laser and scalpel incision wounds in rat oral mucosa.

Capillary proliferation and inflammatory cell infiltration were evaluated in healing laser and scalpel incision wounds in rat tongue mucosa in 22 Sprague-Dawley rats for a period of 28 days. The incisions were made in parallel on both sides of the midline of the tongue. Specimens for immunohistochemical and histologic examination were taken immediately, 6 h, 2, 11, and 28 days after the surgery. The microscopic inspection of the sections stained immunohistologically for factor VIII-related antigen, a marker for endothelial cells, suggested a smaller amount of capillaries immediately and during the early healing phase in the vicinity of the laser incisions when compared with the scalpel incisions. The proliferation of capillaries during healing was also retarded at the lasered sites. The microscopic inspection of the histologic specimens showed that the inflammatory cell infiltration appeared slower but was more prominent in the healing laser wounds than in the healing scalpel incision wounds.