Platelet gel as a new routine method to improve wound healing and tissue regeneration

I ntroduction  Previous data showed that platelets contain growth factors (PDGF, FGF, EGF, TGF-β) that stimulate capillary endothelial migration (angiogenesis), fibroblast proliferation and migration, and collagen synthesis. Nowadays the platelet gel is considered a useful and available tool to increase either the quality or the final quantity of new-conformed bone and to stimulate repair of chronic ulcers resulting in accelerated granulation tissue formation and epithelization. By thinking about the importance to use the platelet gel in surgery and in the treatment of ulcers, an efficient, reliable, reproducible, standardized, easy, safe and economic technique has been recently set up, which permits to obtain quickly an autologous platelet gel in laboratory so it can be used as routine in oral, implant, maxillofacial surgery and in attempt to accelerate the healing of chronic wounds. P atients and M ethods  All patients were given informed consent before inclusion in the study. PC, prepared starting from a low quantity of whole blood (60 mL), is activated by a Batroxabine-calcium gluconate blend to obtain a platelet gel. R esults  We observed, after about 5 weeks from the first application, the recovery of three of the nine treated patients suffering from chronic wounds to lower limb. Till now, the excellent initial results obtained consist in an improvement in the cleansing, in a reduction in ulcer sizes and, for all patients, in an improvement in the painful symptomatology. Furthermore, in implant surgery it has been demonstrated that the application of a platelet gel into bone graft produces, five months after the surgery, a neo-formed bone considerably radiopaque as pointed out by the T.C. exam and confirmed by the hystological analysis.