Study of effect of olive oil on re-epithelialization of epithelial tissue in excision wound healing model in rats

Olive oil has been used for medical purposes. It has beneficial effects on cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The objective of this study was to find out the efficacy of topical administration of olive oil on dermal wound healing in rats. After creating full-thickness skin wounds on the back of 60 male Wistar rats, rats randomly divided into six groups, as control, sham, treatment and standard. Control group was intact. Sham group received eucerin as vehicle. Treated group received the olive oil at doses 2, 5 and 10%, dissolved in eucerin. Standard group were treated with phenytoin ointment 1%. Wound healing rats were calculated on days 3, 7, 11, 14, 18 and 21 post-wounding and the wound tissues were harvested at 3, 7, 14 and 21 days for histological studies. All of rats were sacrificed, and the skin around incision area was dissected and stained by Masson’s trichrome methods for tissue analysis. The results indicated a significant decrease in the diameter of wound in the treated and standard groups comparing to the control groups. A significant increase in the rate of re-epithelialization was observed at 14 days in the treated and standard groups compared to the control group. The results demonstrate that olive oil significantly accelerates cutaneous wound healing and its effect may be due to the increased re-epithelialization. It was concluded that it can be considered as a therapeutic agent for wound healing