Full-thickness dermal wound regeneration using hypoxia preconditioned blood-derived growth factors: A case series

Hard-to-heal wounds can be detrimental to patients’ quality of life. Currently, there is scarcity of therapeutic alternatives to mainstay surgical treatment, which uses the principles of tissue debridement, temporary wound coverage, and subsequent tissue reconstruction. Here, a new approach is proposed that harnesses the regenerative power of autologous peripheral blood, through a process termed hypoxia-adjusted in vitro preconditioning. The effectiveness of this method is demonstrated with six cases of surgical wounds, including two cases of large full-thickness dermal wounds that developed as a result of skin necrosis following abdominoplasty and buttock-lift procedures in heavy smokers, as well as a case of extensive inflammatory tissue damage that occurred following breast surgery. While these wounds differed in size (4–160 cm(2)), geometry and location, all of them could be managed conservatively with topical application of growth factor-enriched hypoxia preconditioned serum derived from the patient’s own peripheral blood. This treatment led to complete wound closure by latest 135 days. The finding of complete skin regeneration even in large (>10 cm(2)), full-thickness wounds, where initially no dermal tissue was available in the wound bed, strongly suggests that the treatment targeted key cellular regenerative mechanisms, including differentiation, angiogenesis, granulation tissue induction, contraction and epithelialization. The method is readily clinically applicable, cost effective, and overcomes limitations of the classic reconstructive approach.