The influence of cortisol on wound healing of the skin and distant connective tissue response.

The effect of moderate dosage cortisol treatment on healing wounds and on the response in skin distant to the wounds was investigated. The stress-strain characteristics of a skin wound and intact skin specimens were examined. Also, skin thickness, water content and collagen content were measured. Cortisol treatment resulted in reduced extensibility and increased stiffness for ten day wounds, but unchanged failure energies; for 20 day wounds, failure energies were reduced, indicating reduced ability to withstand rupturing forces. Thus, the mechanical properties of healing wounds under moderate dosage, long term corticosteroid treatment were found to be slightly impaired. A systemic effect of wounding at day 10 resulted in decreased stiffness and increased collagen content of the skin distant to the wound.