This research on a thyroxine/heparin-based cotton wound dressing tests angiogenic and wound healing ability of thyroxine/heparin in a chick chorionic allantoic membrane bioassay and in skin wounds in healthy rats. Commercially available cotton dressings were simply loaded with thyroxine/heparin solutions and coated with wax. Prior to undertaking the animal study, we assessed in vitro release of thyroxine/heparin from coated and uncoated cotton dressings. Both showed more than 85% release of drug over 14 days, though the lesser release was observed in wax-coated thyroxine/heparin dressing as compared to uncoated thyroxine/heparin dressing. Testing of angiogenesis through CAM assay proved good angiogenic potential of heparin and thyroxin, but the thyroxine found more angiogenic than heparin. In animal study, full-thickness skin wounds of 20 mm diameter showed good healing in both heparin and thyroxine-treated groups. But the most striking result was seen in the thyroxine-treated group where thyroxine showed significant difference with heparin-treated group and completely healed the wounds in 23 days. Thus, the study suggest that thyroxine possesses greater angiogenic and wound healing potential than heparin, and the use of thyroxine/heparin-loaded wax-coated cotton dressing could be a cost-effective option for the management of chronic wounds.
Keywords: CAM assay; angiogenesis; cotton dressing; tissue engineering; wound healing.
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