Faculty of Engineering and Health, HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Goettingen, Germany.
Department of Trauma Surgery, Orthopaedics and Plastic Surgery, University Medical Center Goettingen. Georg-August-University, Goettingen, Germany.
Skin Pharmacol Physiol. 2022;35(6):343-353. doi: 10.1159/000527700. Epub 2022 Nov 9.
We aim to explore potentials and modalities of cold atmospheric pressure plasma (CAP) for the subsequent development of therapies targeting an increased perfusion of the lower leg skin tissue. In this study, we addressed the question whether the microcirculation enhancement is restricted to the tissue in direct contact with plasma or if adjacent tissue might also benefit.
A dielectric barrier discharge (DBD)-generated CAP device exhibiting an electrode area of 27.5 cm2 was used to treat the anterior lower leg of ten healthy subjects for 4.5 min. Subsequently, hyperspectral imaging was performed to measure the tempospatially resolved characteristics of microcirculation parameters in superficial (up to 1 mm) and deeper (up to 5 mm) skin layers.
In the tissue area covered by the plasma electrode, DBD-CAP treatment enhances most of the perfusion parameters. The maximum oxygen saturation increase reached 8%, the near-infrared perfusion index (NIR) increased by a maximum of 4%, and the maximum tissue hemoglobin increase equaled 14%. Tissue water index (TWI) was lower in both the control and the plasma groups, thus not affected by the DBD-CAP treatment. Yet, our study reveals that adjacent tissue is hardly affected by the enhancements in the electrode area, and the effects are locally confined.
Application of DBD-CAP to the lower leg resulted in enhancement of cutaneous microcirculation that extended 1 h beyond the treatment period with localization to the tissue area in direct contact with the cold plasma. This suggests the possibility of tailoring application schemes for topically confined enhancement of skin microcirculation, e.g., in the treatment of chronic wounds.
我们旨在探索冷大气压等离子体（CAP）的潜力和方式，以开发针对小腿皮肤组织灌注增加的治疗方法。在这项研究中，我们提出了一个问题，即微循环增强是否仅限于直接与等离子体接触的组织，或者相邻组织是否也能受益。
使用介电阻挡放电（DBD）产生的 CAP 装置，其电极面积为 27.5 cm2，对 10 名健康受试者的前小腿进行 4.5 分钟的治疗。随后，进行高光谱成像以测量浅层（达 1 毫米）和深层（达 5 毫米）皮肤层中微循环参数的时空分辨特征。
在等离子体电极覆盖的组织区域中，DBD-CAP 治疗增强了大多数灌注参数。最大氧饱和度增加了 8%，近红外灌注指数（NIR）最大增加了 4%，最大组织血红蛋白增加了 14%。在对照组和等离子组中，组织水指数（TWI）均较低，因此不受 DBD-CAP 治疗的影响。然而，我们的研究表明，相邻组织几乎不受电极区域增强的影响，并且影响局限于局部。
将 DBD-CAP 应用于小腿可增强皮肤微循环，其增强作用可在治疗期后 1 小时内持续，定位在与冷等离子体直接接触的组织区域。这表明可以针对皮肤微循环的局部增强来定制应用方案，例如在治疗慢性伤口时。
