documented with 1% silver sulfadiazine. Hence, the developed herbal drug-loaded

electrospun dressing mat is far better as wound dressing as compared to commer-

cially available 1% silver sulfadiazine. ‘Panchavalkala’ (Anandjiwala et al. 2008)

(PV) is a combination of stem bark of five trees, namely, Ficus benghalensis, Ficus

lacor, Ficus racemosa, Ficus religiosa and Thespesia populnea, quite popular as a

traditional herbal medicine for wound management. The main disadvantages of

these types of polyherbs are easily washable, low bioavailability and very short

shelf life which decrease its efficacy in wound management. The impregnation of

this polyherb into a biocompatible and biodegradable polymer nanofibre, namely,

poly(lactic acid) (PLA) through electrospinning technique not only improves its

shelf life and bioavailability but also releases the drug on the wound site in a faster

and controlled manner. In vivo study with a full-thickness excision wound on albino

rats reveals faster wound contraction with PV-loaded PLA electrospun scaffold as

compared to other dressing materials like PV-loaded PLA film or PV solution

(Biswas et al. 2018a) (Fig. 30.2c). The histopathological investigation reveals

complete healing in terms of prominent vascularization and intact epithelium with

very minimal inflammation after 7 days of treatment with PV-PLA group, while

other groups take more than 10 days to show complete epithelialization (Fig. 30.2d).

Further,

the

immunohistochemistry

investigation

with

CD31

shows

neovascularization in PV-PLA scaffold group after 7 days of treatment. The positive

staining accumulation near the periphery of small vessel and capillary in PV-PLA

group indicates accelerated healing process in PV-PLA group as compared to other

groups. Another dressing patch made of thymoquinone-incorporated PLA-cellulose

acetate nanofibres exhibits excellent wound healing property (Gomaa et al. 2017).

The thymoquinone is well-known for its antibacterial and wound management

properties. In vivo studies reveal that the impregnation of thymoquinone into

nanofibre promotes re-epithelialization, angiogenesis and granulation tissue forma-

tion. The freeze-dry scaffolds are also very effective as wound dressing because of

its porous structure and high absorbing ability. The nanohybrid of curcumin and

chitosan nanoparticle-incorporated collagen freeze-dry scaffold exhibits significant

wound contraction ( p < 0.001) in animal excision wound model as compared to

control and placebo groups which is further supported by the histopathological

examination. A thick granulation tissue with complete re-epithelialization is

observed in nanohybrid group, while incomplete collagen deposition and inflamma-

tion are noticed in placebo and control group, respectively (Karri et al. 2016).

The phytoconstitutes like alkaloids, flavonoids and tannins are highly effective

against chronic wounds and piles. The antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of

phytoconstitutes of Ficus racemosa help to accelerate the wound healing rate. The

dermal patches of Protanol LF10/60 incorporated with alkaloids, flavonoids and

tannins separately are very effective in wound management. In vivo experiment

reveals that flavonoid- and tannin-loaded dermal patches exhibit superior healing

ability

as

compared

to

alkaloid-loaded

dermal

patch

(Ravichandiran

and

Manivannan 2015).

594

A. Biswas et al.