Healing of wounds in lower extremities employing a non-thermal plasma

Purpose: Venous, neuropathic, and mixed (venous and arterial) ulcers are complex chronic wounds that have a tremendous long-term impact on the mortality, morbidity, and quality of life of patients. In this work it was evaluated the efficacy of the non-thermal helium plasma at atmospheric pressure applied in patients with this suffering.

Methods: Using three elements: a RF generator, a needle-type reactor, and helium gas flow, for non-thermal plasma generation were used. The power density on the tissue of patients was of 0.6–0.67 W/cm². The application time was 30 s/cm² daily, at 5 to 10 mm of distance from the wound.

Results: The thirty-two patients with venous and mixed ulcers indicated that they had a decrease progressively of the pain with the therapy, without the need to continue with analgesics. Besides, the ten patients with chronic wounds showed 100% healing in neuropathic ulcers. For eight patients with venous leg ulcers, the percentage was reduced to 75% healing. While for fourteen patients with mixed leg ulcers, the rate of healing was 59%.

Conclusion: The non-thermal plasma generated in a needle reactor with helium gas is a promising candidate for clinical and therapeutic use in the treatment of neuropathic leg ulcers, with time reduction healing, and it can be applied everyday. In the study conducted, it was found that the non-thermal plasma applied to patients with autoimmune diseases clinically was not beneficial.