Horsetail ointments exhibit significant diabetic wound healing activity in excision wounds. - GreenMedInfo Summary

UNLABELLED: This study is designed to evaluate the effect of Equisetum arvense (EA) ointment on dermal diabetic wound healing in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats.

METHODS: In this study, diabetes was induced via a single intraperitoneal injection of 65 mg/kg streptozotocin in 56 male Wistar rats. After anesthetization, a 15 mm x 15 mm wound for each rat was made by removing skin in a circle on the dorsum. A total of 56 diabetic wounds were studied in 8 groups (n = 7), 4 of which were treated with EA ointment. On the 7th and 14th days after creating the wounds, the state of the diabetic wound healing was evaluated with wound closure ratio and by performing histopathologic studies.

RESULTS: Groups treated with EA 5%-10% ointment were found to have a statistically higher wound closure ratio than control and petroleum jelly-lanolin groups (P<0.05). On day 14, groups to which EA 5%-10% ointment was applied showed 99.71% and 99.93% wound closure ratio (P<0.05) and higher dermal and epidermal regeneration, angiogenesis, and granulation tissue thickness after 14 days than the other groups (P<0.05).

CONCLUSION: These results indicate that EA ointments exhibit significant diabetic wound healing activity in excision wounds. Further clinical and experimental studies are needed to confirm these results.