The Effects of Acidified Nitrite on Wound Healing in Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetic Mice.

BACKGROUND

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the most common metabolic diseases in the world. Studies have shown that nitric oxide (NO) promotes re-epithelialization and stimulates angiogenesis and neovascularization. This study aimed to investigate the effect of exogenous NO on diabetic wound healing.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This study was performed on 63 male BALB/c mice. For type 2 diabetes induction, the animals were fed a high-fat diet followed by a single dose of streptozotocin (STZ) (35 mg/kg) injection intraperitoneally. Acidified nitrite cream was prepared with 3.0% (w/v) sodium nitrite (SN) and 4.5% (w/v) citric acid monohydrate, respectively, in the aqueous cream base. Histopathological examinations were performed using hematoxylin and eosin and Masson's trichrome staining.

RESULTS

The results showed that in the silver sulfadiazine-treated group, the size of the wound surface on the 7 day was significantly ( < 0.05) reduced compared to the control group. There was a significant ( < 0.005) decrease in the size of the wound in the SN-treated group on days 7 and 14 compared to the control group. The results of histopathological studies also showed that re-epithelialization and granulation in the diabetic wound site increased in the groups treated with acidified nitrite cream compared to other groups.

CONCLUSION

The use of topical acidified nitrite cream increases the speed of wound healing and it accelerates the healing of diabetic wounds in mice by causing a delay in the inflammation process and increasing the speed of re-epithelialization.