New Therapeutic Platforms for the Treatment of Epithelial and Cutaneous Lesions

There are still so-called unmet needs in the treatment of epithelial and cutaneous lesions. Mucositis, ocular lesions, chronic skin wounds represent typical examples. These pathologies do not yet afford a satisfactory treatment. In particular chronic wounds represent a major health care burden, likely to increase as the population ages. Healing of epithelial and cutaneous lesions progresses through a complex cascade of events starting with the secretion in the local environment of a pool of growth factors, cytokines and proteins from the serum and degranulating platelets. Recently platelet lysate (PL), a hemoderivative obtained by platelet destruction by freeze-thawing of a platelet rich plasma (PRP) sample in the presence of an anticoagulant agent, has proved capable of promoting the healing of buccal and corneal lesions. Since the efficacy of growth factors (GFs) critically depends on the way they are made available to the injured tissue, the development of suitable therapeutic vehicles is of paramount importance to release GFs according to the repairing requirements. The present work focuses on the development and testing of few such formulations, in particular a mucoadhesive gel and an in situ gelling buccal spray for the treatment of oral mucositis, and a thermosensitive eye drop solution for corneal lesions. Besides technological characterization, the formulations have been preliminarily screened with an ELISA assay, a cell proliferation test and an in vitro wound healing test. Some formulations have been used in early clinical trials.