Improvement of wound tissue repair by chitosan films containing (-)-borneol, a bicyclic monoterpene alcohol, in rats.

The aim of this study was to investigate the wound-healing activity of (-)-borneol (BOR) incorporated in chitosan film on healing protocol in rodents. To assess the BOR wound-healing potential, male Wistar rats were subjected to a full-thickness excisional wound. The animals were divided into three groups: dressed with chitosan-based film (QUIN); dressed with chitosan-based film containing 0·5% BOR (QUIBO05); or dressed with chitosan-based film containing 1% BOR (QUIBO1). Dressing the wound areas and histological analysis were performed on the 3rd, 7th, 14th, and 21st days. The myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity was assessed on the third and seventh days after surgical procedures. Wounds dressed with chitosan-based film containing BOR reduced significantly the MPO activity (P < 0·001), showed significantly larger wound retraction rates (7 days, P < 0·05), improved the granulation reaction, and also provided better collagenisation density and arrangement during wound healing. It is suggested that BOR modulates the wound-healing process and is a promising compound to be used in wound care. This product may be quite useful in improving wound healing and could be a new biotechnological product with healing properties and clinical application. Further ongoing studies will enable us to understand the precise mechanisms whereby BOR improves the wound-healing process.

Natural products assessed in animal models for orofacial pain – a systematic review

ABSTRACT Orofacial pain is related to tissues of the head, face, neck and all the intraoral structures; it is rather debilitating to the patient and also difficult to treat. There are relatively few studies dedicated to the use of natural products to alleviate orofacial pain in preclinical experiment models (performed in experimental animals which provide support for clinical trials). Main objectives of the present systematic review summarize the studies on natural products assessed in animal models for orofacial pain seeking to give evidence to future development of new pharmaceutical products to manage the orofacial pain. Our review includes a thorough search of literature using the terms of orofacial pain, facial pain, medicinal plants and natural products. This search was performed using to retrieve English language articles in Medline-PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. A total of eighteen studies were included in our survey for the inclusion criteria. Firstly, this review identified 210 citations from electronic search, after removal of duplicates and screening for relevant titles and abstracts, a total of eighteen articles were selected to the inclusion criteria established. Our findings suggest that natural products can be a promising or a trump tool for the development of new drugs to treat orofacial pain conditions, but the researchers that deal with experimental preclinical trials of new drugs (including natural products or synthetic drugs) for orofacial pain conditions urgently need to show translational evidence (with clinical approach) of these compounds.