Background: Diabetes Mellitus causes many systemic and oral complications including impaired wound healing. Recently, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) treatment to utilize a patient's own platelets and growth factors to improve healing at the site of injury has been used extensively.
Objective: Evaluation of the effect of PRP on tongue wound healing in normal and Streptozotocin-induced diabetic albino rats by H&E and Masson's trichrome histological stains and by TEM ultrastructural examination.
Methodology: A total number of 108 adult male albino rats with average weight 200gm, were used in the experiment. The rats were classified into two main groups: non-diabetic and diabetic groups. Each group was further divided into three subgroups: non-treated wound, PRP-treatment before wound, and PRP-treatment after wound. Tongue specimens were dissected on postoperative days 3, 7, and 10. The specimens were examined histologically by H&E and MT, and ultra-structurally by TEM.
Results: The most rapid wound healing was revealed in the non-diabetic and diabetic subgroups treated with PRP before the wound, which occurred very early at the 3rd day postoperative. While complete wound healing was revealed at the 7th day postoperative in both the non-diabetic and diabetic subgroups treated with PRP after the wound, which was like the non-diabetic control subgroup. Whilst, the diabetic non-treated subgroup was the last to show wound healing which took place at the 10th day postoperative.
Conclusion: PRP could be applied before or after wounding occurs, to prevent impaired wound healing and to enhance wound healing in diabetic and non-diabetic oral mucosal wounds.