The Regenerative Effects of Botulinum Toxin A: New Perspectives

Abstract

Background: Botulinum Toxin A (BTX-A) has been found to improve blood flow perfusion. This study aimed to find in literature the use of BTX-A in Plastic Surgery and in particular its use to improve blood flow perfusion.Methods: We read the article “Effects of Botulinum Toxin A on the blood flow in expanded rat skin” and starting from this article we searched in the literature all the articles talking about the use of BTX-A to improve blood flow perfusion.Results: BTX-A increase the expression of VEGF, CD-31 and INOS. Moreover BTX-A selective suppress sympathetic neurons of the cutaneous microcirculation. We found 13 studies that confirm the effects of Botulinum Toxin A in improving blood flow perfusion of cutaneous and myocutaneous flaps.Conclusion: We think that in the future we could start to use BTX-A in these fields of plastic surgery, but we really need to understand good dosages and standardize them, see which are the effects on long-term outcomes, and put on randomized trials providing high-level evidence about the range of dosages in which we are safe to use BTX-A and asses the risk-benefit ratio in humans and the cost-benefit ratio.