Treatment of Chronic Ulcer in Diabetic Rats with Asiaticosides / 中国药学杂志

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the treatment effects of chronic ulcer in diabetic rats with asiaticosides. METHODS: Totally 38 male CL grade SD rats were randomly divided into normal group and model group, and were feed in metabolic cage separately. The low (22.29 mg·cm-2), medium (111.45 mg·cm-2) and high (222.93 mg·cm-2) dose of centella triterpenes cream were characterized and tested on excision ulcer wounds of streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. After treatment, the weight, blood glucose, water intake and total urine output were measured in 3, 7, 10 and 14 d respectively. The wound healing rate was evaluated by image processing software of Adobe Photoshop CS5. Histopathological studies were conducted on the healed wound tissues to observe for epithelisation, fibroblast proliferation and angiogenesis. RESULTS: It was found that at all time points the areas of wounds treated with asiaticosides were smaller compared with the controls. The expression of weight, water intake, total urine output and blood glucose increased statistically in the model group (P<0.05).Pathological results showed much better healing efficacy for the test samples compared with the control ones(P<0.05). The middle dose of centella triterpenes cream was the best (P<0.01). Histopathological studies had also shown that centella triterpenes cream treated wounds exhibited re-epithelisation, higher fibroblast proliferation, collagen synthesis, and angiogenesis. At 14 days post excision, the medium centella triterpenes cream treated group achieved complete repair. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that asiaticosides may have a potential application in the treatment of diabetic ulcers and chronic wound healing.