Local anesthetics and wound healing

The effects of local anesthetics, lidocaine and bupivacaine, were tested in tissue cultures of 3T3 and W1-38 fibroblasts, in slices of newborn rat skin and in vivo in granuloma tissue induced by subcutaneous implantation of stainless steel cylinder in rats. The effects on the synthesis or amounts of DNA, collagen, glycosaminoglycans (GAG), noncollagenous proteins, and the activity of prolyl hydroxylase were studied. We found that irrespective of the biological system used, both anesthetics inhibit the synthesis of collagen to a greater extent than noncollagenous proteins. The synthesis of GAG was inhibited as well. We observed no effect on the synthesis or amount of DNA. We conclude that local anesthetics inhibit wound healing by inhibiting the synthesis of major structural macromolecules, collagen and GAG.