Objective: 

Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy has been widely used for the treatment of inflammation-based pathophysiological processes. A relative new therapeutic modality, medical ozone therapy (OT), has also been reported to represent beneficial effects in inflammatory pathologies. In this study, the efficacy of HBO and OT were compared in an excisional wound model of rats.

Methods: 

First, under ketamine/xylazine anesthesia, two full-thickness excisional skin wounds were created on the back of SD-rats by a 10-mm punch biopsy. Then, the animals were divided into three groups: control, HBO, OT (n=12 for each). Daily HBO and OT treatments were started immediately after wound creation. Ozone was injected at a dose of 1 mg/kg and HBO administrations were set at 2.5 atm for 90 min. One half of the animals were sacrificed on day 5, and the other half on day 8. Evaluation was made by measuring the wound surface areas and excising the wound tissues for histopathologic analysis.

Results: 

On day 5, both HBO and OT resulted in significantly smaller wound areas than controls, and the wound area of ozone-treated animals was also significantly less then the HBO group. On day 8, no difference was recorded among HBO and OT animals, but both of the treatment groups represented significantly better wound healing compared with control animals. Histopathological evaluations revealed that inflammation decreased whereas the amount of collagen, angiogenesis and epithelialization increased significantly with HBO and OT.

Conclusions: 

In conclusion, both HBO and OT efficaciously accelerated wound healing in the model used in this study whereas OT was more powerful during the acute phase of the healing process.