Inhibiting polyamine synthesis is highly toxic to protozoal parasites [38]. Based on this observation, eflornithine was developed for the treatment of meninogoencephalitic stage of Trypanosoma bruceigambiense infection (African sleeping sickness). It is available as an Rx intravenous dose under the brand name Ornidyl from Aventis, for treatment of this infection. As a monotherapy, eflornithine has […]

Eflornithine (a-Difluoromethylornithine; DFMO) is an irreversible inhibitor of ornithine decarboxylase, a critical rate-limiting enzyme in the de novo biosynthesis of the polyamines putrescine, spermidine, and spermine [15]. Although the precise function of polyamines in cellular proliferation is not well-understood, they seem to play a fundamental role in the synthesis and/or regulation of DNA, RNA, and […]

Gurpreet S. Ahluwalia and Douglas Shander The Gillette Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of The P&G Company, Needham, MA, USA 20.1 Introduction 383 20.2 Anti-Proliferative Activity of Eflornithine 384 20.2.1 Other Uses of Eflornithine 386 20.3 Effect of Eflornithine on Hair Follicle Growth 386 20.4 Eflornithine Cream VaniqaTM: An Rx Topical Product for Unwanted Hair […]

Lasers are now widely used for treating numerous cutaneous lesions, scar revision (hypertrophic and keloid scars), skin resurfacing, skin remodeling, and for fractional pho­tothermolysis (wrinkles removal) [24]. For these treatements, lasers are used to generate heat. The modulation of the effects (volatilization, coagulation, hyperthermia) is obtained by using different wavelengths and laser parameters. The heat […]

The number of clinical studies is very limited. Trelles et al., in a small series of ten patients, have used red LED phototherapy (20 minutes, 96 J/cm2, 633 nm), after blepharo- plasty and laser ablative resurfacing. They observed that LED phototherapy cut the time for the resolution of side effects, and the healing time by […]

Due to the recent introduction of powerful LED, there are a very limited number of exper­imental studies on wound healing. Al-Watban et al. have performed a study to determine the efficacy of polychromatic LED in the enhancement of wound healing in nondiabetic and diabetic rats. A polychromatic LED (a cluster of 25 diodes emitting photons […]

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are much more powerful than the previous generation with quasimonochromatic outputs. These LEDs can offer target specificity to accelerate wound healing. The term “photobiomodulation,” is also used since light in the far-red to near-infrared region of the spectrum (630-1000 nm) is supposed to modulate numerous cellular func­tions [16-19]. Similar to LLLT, experimental […]

A recent report of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has evalu­ated eleven clinical studies on LLLT for wound healing [12]. Among them, nine were rated poor in quality, while one was rated fair, and only was rated to be of good quality. This higher-quality study did not show a higher probability of […]

Lucas et al. have performed a systematic review of cell studies and animal experiment with LLLT on wound healing. Manuscripts were identified by searching Medline, Embase, and SPIE (the International Society for Optical Engineering). It was assessed whether the studies showed a beneficial effect of active treatment or not. The magnitude of the effect was […]