Lysates from cultured allogeneic keratinocytes stimulate wound healing after tympanoplasty

In the past, cultured keratinocyte allografts have been used with benefit in the treatment of burn wounds and leg ulcers. Since in burn wounds autologous and allogeneic fresh keratinocyte cultures were found to give similar favorable results as lysates of allogeneic cultured cells, the authors investigated whether this lysate mixed in an antibiotic suspension would also accelerate the epithelial healing after routine tympanoplasty. In a double blind setting the healing process in 50 consecutive tympanoplasty ears was studied: an acceleration of healing of 8 days was observed in the lysate-treated group (39.25 days) as compared with the control group (47.23 days). The percentage of ears which healed within 6 weeks (after 5 weekly applications of 200 mu l suspension in both groups) was significantly higher in the treated group (61%) than in the control population (36%). Although the therapeutical effect of the keratinocyte lysate in this study is believed to be due primarily to its mitogenic activity through growth factors or cytokines, at present it is still unclear which growth factors are involved and which combinations of these factors have to be present to modulate the different stages of the complex healing processes.