Acceleration of granulation tissue ingrowth by hyaluronic acid in artificial skin

Hyaluronic acid (HA), which is known to play an important role in wound healing, was incorporated in an artificial skin material and studied for its potential to create a wound bed which would support a skin graft. Collagen sponge based artificial skin was soaked in 0.3% HA in phosphate buffered saline and grafted onto skin defects in rats. Control grafts were soaked in normal saline solution. HA incorporated implants and control implants were simultaneously grafted onto wounds made on either side of the spine. To examine the effect of HA incorporation, the percentage area of cellular tuft infiltration and the number of capillaries present in the graft matrix were evaluated at 7 and 14 days after the operation. At postoperative day 7, there was a statistically significant difference in the number of capillaries in the matrix of the experimental versus the control implants. There was no difference in the percentage area of cellular tuft infiltration. At postoperative day 14, all implants exhibited better ingrowth of granulation tissue than at day 7. The differences between the experimental and control implants were statistically significant with respect to both the percentage area of cellular tuft infiltration and the number of capillaries. It is therefore concluded that in artificial skin HA incorporation accelerates the ingrowth of granulation tissue, making a more suitable graft bed.