Toxicity of direct non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma treatment of living tissue

Non-thermal atmospheric pressure dielectric barrier discharge plasma applied directly to living tissues is now being widely considered for various clinical applications. One of the key questions that arise in this type of topical treatment is if the skin remains undamaged after non-thermal plasma treatment. The results from the previous rodent model provided strong evidence for the ability of non-thermal plasma to sterilize the surface of the tissue without any thermal damage to the tissue. It is well established that porcine (pig) skin closely resembles human skin; hence we evaluated the potential toxic effects of non-thermal plasma treatment on underlying skin cells and tissue on porcine skin. In a Yorkshire pig model, the intact skin and wounded tissue treatment was carried out at varying doses to locate the damaging power/time (dose) combination and the resulting skin damage was analyzed. In this paper we study the possible short term and long term toxic effects of the non-thermal plasma treatment on intact living tissue. Non-thermal plasma has been shown to sterilize intact tissue without visible or microscopic damage, and our goal was to identify the boundaries of skin toxicity after treatment.