Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP), a room temperate ionised gas, known as the fourth state of matter is an ionised gas and can be produced from argon, helium, nitrogen, oxygen or air at atmospheric pressure and low temperatures. CAP has become a new promising way for many biomedical applications, such as disinfection, cancer treatment, root canal treatment, wound healing, and other medical applications. Among these applications, investigations of plasma for skin wound healing have gained huge success both in vitro and in vivo experiments without any known significant negative effects on healthy tissues. The development of CAP devices has led to novel therapeutic strategies in wound healing, tissue regeneration and skin infection management. CAP consists of a mixture of multitude of active components such as charged particles, electric field, UV radiation, and reactive gas species which can act synergistically. CAP has lately been recognized as an alternative approach in medicine for sterilization of wounds by its antiseptic effects and promotion of wound healing by stimulation of cell proliferation and migration of wound related skin cells. With respect to CAP applications in medicine, this review focuses particularly on the potential of CAP and the known molecular basis for this action. We summarize the available literature on the plasma devices developed for wound healing, the current in vivo and in vitro use of CAP, and the mechanism behind it as well as the biosafety issues.
Overview of Cold Atmospheric Plasma in Wounds Treatment
