An investigation of misoprostol in the promotion of wound healing

Misoprostol is a synthetic analogue of prostaglandin E1 that is known to attenuate the inflammatory process and promote collagen formation by inhibiting IL-1 and TNF. The objective of this study was to determine if the application of misoprostol wound powder to open wounds in dogs would modulate inflammation and decrease wound healing time. This prospective randomized study included 20 dogs with 281 surgically created 8 mm open wounds over the dorsum. The wounds were assigned to one of three treatments: control (no treatment), treatment (misoprostol powder with 'avicel'), or vehicle ('avicel' alone). Open wounds were digitally photographed on days zero, one, three, seven, 10, and 15 to measure wound size. All wounds were harvested at day 15 and evaluated histologically for evidence of edema, inflammation, necrosis, and collagen characteristics. Amount of epithelialization of open wounds was not significantly different among the groups at days three, seven, 10, and 15. The vehicle treated wounds were found to have a significantly higher degree of necrosis in comparison to control and treatment wounds. The control wounds had significantly lower scores for deep inflammation. All of the other parameters evaluated including location of wound, oedema, and characteristics of collagen fibres in the wound showed no significance among groups. However, the total wound score for the misoprostol was statistically higher than that for the control wounds. Therefore the value of using misoprostol wound powder with 'avicel' as the vehicle to enhance wound healing cannot be substantiated by the results of this study.