Effects of Apremilast on Induced Hypertrophic Scar of Rabbits.

Abstract

The present study aimed to assess the effect of Apremilast on experimentally inducedhypertrophic scarsin rabbits. A total of 40 healthy male New Zealand White rabbits between 6 and 12 months of age were assigned to four groups (n=10). Group I consists of apparently healthy control rabbits, in group II, the rabbits with an induced hypertrophic scar received no treatment, except for base gel. In group III, the rabbits with induced hypertrophic scar were treated with triamcinolone acetonide (TAC) 0.1% as standard medication. In group IV, rabbits with induced hypertrophic scars were treated with Apremilast 5%. On the first day,four surgical incisions were madeusing an 8-mm biopsy punch on the ventral surface of the rabbit eardownto cartilage. The TAC and Apremilast were topically administered to thedeveloped scars on day 31. The results included an examination of skin histopathology, thelevel oftransforming growth factorbeta-1 (TGF-β1), andcollagen III in skin tissue. In the treatments, the inflammatory score, scar index, as well as immunological scores of TGFβ1 and collagen III, significantly decreased, compared to the hypertrophic induced scar group(P≤0.001). Moreover, there was a significant reductionin fibroblast count, compared to thegroup of inducedhypertrophic scars (P<0.05). Apremilast was efficacious in the treatment of hypertrophic scars due to its ability to reduce inflammations and fibroblast counts and scar index. Nonetheless, the reduction of immunological scoreswas almost comparableto that of topical TAC.