Cold plasma technique helps wounds heal quicker

Medical researchers in Germany have developed a technique which, they claim, will help open wounds to heal more quickly. A particular problem in older people, open wounds such as ulcers, complications from diabetes and skin conditions like dermatitis and psoriasis are painful, often difficult to treat, and create a path for further infections.

The treatment method uses cold plasma as a healing agent, the first time this has been used on human beings. It uses the skin itself as an electrode in an electrical discharge process. The treatment device, about the size of a hand-held torch, houses an electrode that the doctor holds close to the wound site. A high voltage applied across the gap between the device electrode and the skin ‘electrode’ creates an electrical field that ionises the air in the gap, bathing the wound in a non-thermal or cold plasma. ‘All you feel is a slight tickling sensation,’ said Prof Wolfgang Viöl of  the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films, who developed the technique working with the company Cinogy and the Department of Dermatology, Venereology and Allergology at the University Medical Centre Göttingen.