In recent years, interest in the topical use of platelet gel (PG) to stimulate wound healing has rapidly extended into various clinical applications and specialized fields. Many recent in vitro and in vivo studies have attempted to explain the biological mechanisms involved in PG-induced tissue regeneration/reparation. However, it remains unclear which parameters should be used in clinical applications to obtain satisfactory results in the healing of wounds. Toward this end, the present study focused on understanding the relationship between platelet concentrations and the cellular parameters of the cell types, i.e., fibroblasts, involved in wound healing. Normal human dermal fibroblasts were treated with PG-released supernatant at various concentrations in different assays (proliferation, migration, invasion, and in vitro scratch wound closure) to identify the most effective concentration to promote the fibroblasts' activities. Different concentrations of platelets per microliter in PG have different levels of efficacy in inducing fibroblast activity. The most effective concentration was obtained from PG at a concentration of approximately 0.5-1.5 × 10(6) plt/μL; higher concentrations were less effective. This study shows that excessively high concentrations of platelets per microliter have an inhibitory effect on the wound healing processes and are, therefore, counterproductive.
© 2013 by the Wound Healing Society.