The most detailed study to date of skin wound healing, conducted by University of Manchester scientists with 40 volunteers, has provided new evidence that electrical stimulation accelerates wound healing.
In the new research, half-centimeter harmless wounds were created on each upper arm of the volunteers. One wound was left to heal normally, while the other was treated with electrical pulses over a period of two weeks. The pulses stimulated angiogenesis — the process by which new blood vessels form — increasing blood flow to the damaged area and resulting in wounds healing significantly faster.
“The aim of this study was to further evaluate the role of electrical stimulation (ES) in affecting angiogenesis during the acute phase of cutaneous wound healing over multiple time points to identify if the enhanced effect occurred earlier than day 14,” the researchers note in a paper published in open-access PLoS ONE.
“This research has shown the effectiveness of electrical stimulation in wound healing,” said research leader Ardeshir Bayat of the University’s Institute of Inflammation and Repair. “We believe this technology has the potential to be applied to any situation where faster wound healing is particularly desirable, such as human or veterinary surgical wounds, accidents, military trauma, and sports injuries.”
Based on the findings, the researchers plan to work with Oxford BioElectronics Ltd. on a five-year project to develop and evaluate devices and dressings that use these experimental techniques to stimulate the body’s nervous system to generate nerve impulses directed to the site of skin repair.
How electrical stimulation enhances wound healing
The researchers explain in the paper that “ES in its various forms has been shown to enhance wound healing by promoting the migration of keratinocytes and macrophages, enhancing angiogenesis, stimulating fibroblasts, and influencing protein synthesis throughout the inflammatory, proliferative, and remodeling phases of healing.”
The researchers previously “investigated the in vitro effect of different types of ES on the expression of collagen in skin fibroblasts. Importantly, we highlighted the role of a novel waveform termed degenerate wave (DW is a degenerating sine wave, which deteriorates over time) and demonstrated its beneficial effects compared to other known waveforms such as direct and alternating currents.”
Skin wounds that are slow to heal are a clinical challenge to physicians all over the world. Every year, the NHS in the U.K. alone spends £1 billion on treating chronic wounds such as lower limb venous and diabetic ulcers. (Wounds become chronic when they fail to heal and remain open for longer than six weeks.)
