Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of ozone therapy on wound healing formed experimentally in the oral cavity of rats.
Design: Two surgical wounds were generated on the cheeks of 24 Wistar rats, bilaterally. Half of the animals were submitted to ozone therapy on both wounds (experimental group) and the other half received no treatment (control group). In the experimental group, wounds were exposed to ozone gas 1, 2 or 3 (60 μg/mL) times. Evaluation of wound healing of the buccal mucosa was followed for 1, 3 and 7 days. The distribution of neutrophils, fibroplasia and angiogenesis were analyzed. Samples were classified in a healing numerical scale according to the inflammatory intensity. Data were submitted to Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests (α = 0.05).
Results: On day 1, wounds were similar in both groups, lesions were open and bloody with slightly minor bleeding in the ozone therapy group. On day 3, the group with ozone therapy was almost all refurbished and with higher angiogenesis, while the control group still had more bloody points and lower blood vessels. On day 7, both wounds were remodeled, with higher fibroplasia in the group that received ozone therapy.
Conclusion: It can be concluded that ozone therapy was effective in improving angiogenesis and fibroblasts count in the buccal mucosa of rats.
Keywords: Angiogenesis; Healing; Ozone therapy.
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