Effects of cyclophosphamide on open, granulating skin wounds in rats

The effect of cyclophosphamide on the healing of open cutaneous wounds was studied in rats. Following intraperitoneal injections of 25 mg/kg body weight every second day for 9 days, only about 7% of the wounds were completely covered by epithelium after 15 days, whereas in the control animals 60% of the wounds were completely epithelialized. Measurements of wound diameters in circular skin wounds revealed unhealed wound areas in the drug treated animals which were significantly larger than those of the control animals. Cyclophosphamide was found to reduce the occurrence of H3-labelled cells in the granulation tissue when evaluated after 11 days. At 15 days there was no difference in the labelling frequency between treated and control animals, indicating reversal of the drug effect.