Abstract
Recently omental flaps have widely been used in clinical practice. A few experimental studies, however, have examined the effect of omental flaps in wound healing. We examined its effect using a gastric wall defect model. We created an omental flap lining a 2.0-mm defect perforating a rat stomach and created a silicon sheet lining as a control. We examined the tissue response during gastric wall regeneration on postoperative days. Immunohistochemical study was also performed using proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2). In the omental group, granulation tissue proliferated by day 3 and stratified villi completely covered the defect by day 7. In the control group, little granulation tissue was observed and the defect had not yet been covered by day 10. In the control group, some PCNA- and FGF-2-positive cells were observed on the edges of the epithelium. In the omental group, many PCNA- and FGF-2-positive cells were observed in the granulation tissue near wound edges and in the center of the omental granulation as well as the edges of the epithelium.
This study confirmed that the omental flap accelerated gastric wall wound healing by cell proliferation.
