Hydrogen-Rich Saline Combined With Vacuum Sealing Drainage Promotes Wound Healing by Altering Biotin Metabolism
Kuang X, Liang Z, Xia Y, Shan M, Hao Y, Liu H, Wang Z, He Q, Xia C, Feng C, Chang G, Wang Y. · Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. 2025;29(1):e70292.
What kind of evidence is this?
Preclinical
Randomized controlled rabbit full-thickness-wound experiment plus keratinocyte experiments and untargeted metabolomics
Skin, wound and aging research
Other forms
Not reported in this record.
Not reported in this record.
Methods at a glance
Rabbits with experimental full-thickness skin wounds and cultured HaCaT human keratinocytes.
30 rabbits randomized to five groups of six; tissue/metabolomic assays used subsets. Separate HaCaT experiments were also performed.
Seven days of treatment; wound closure followed through day 14.
Each wound received freshly prepared hydrogen-rich saline irrigation for 3 minutes three times daily for 7 days, with or without 125 mmHg vacuum-sealing drainage for 2 hours/day.
H₂ dissolved in saline — topical irrigation, not inhalation, swallowed water or Brown's gas.
Saline was hydrogenated in 280 mL under 0.4 MPa and used immediately; the article does not report a measured numerical dissolved-H₂ concentration.
Not applicable — topical saline irrigation, not gas inhalation.
No O₂ was co-delivered as part of the intervention.
Untreated control, ordinary-saline irrigation, hydrogen-rich saline alone and vacuum drainage plus ordinary saline.
Outcomes and reported result
Wound-healing rate and closure time, histology, inflammatory and oxidative markers, metabolomics, biotin-pathway measures and keratinocyte proliferation/migration.
The combination group showed higher wound-healing rates than control and saline groups on days 4–10 and a small difference versus vacuum drainage plus saline on day 10 (99.997% versus 98.848%, p=0.0484). Complete-closure time differed versus control and was shorter than vacuum drainage plus saline (p=0.038). Metabolomic and cell analyses implicated biotin/energy and oxidative-stress pathways, but they do not prove a human clinical mechanism.
The complete Wiley/PMC article, rabbit allocation, H₂ preparation, treatment schedule, figures, null and positive comparisons, metabolomics, cell work, funding and conflicts were checked.
A reported association, difference or mechanism is not automatically a clinical benefit. Null findings, outcome type, study design and precision all matter.
Cautions and applicability
Animal and cell evidence only despite human keratinocyte indexing. Small groups, many outcomes, assay subsets and a modest day-10 between-treatment difference. Hydrogen concentration was not measured numerically. Nanobubble Technology supplied the hydrogen-generating bottles. Funding came from Peking Union Medical College Hospital (2022-PUMCH-B-040); authors declared no conflicts.
Experimental rabbit wounds and cultured keratinocytes; not evidence for wound treatment in patients.
Not reported in this record.
Not reported in this record.
Not reported in this record.
No single-study GRADE certainty rating is assigned. Certainty is assessed by important outcome across a complete eligible evidence set, not by attaching a final grade to one source.
Sources and record status
PMID: 39804806 · DOI: 10.1111/jcmm.70292
Open-access publisher article and PubMed Central copy.
Wiley publisher full article, PubMed Central copy and PubMed metadata; full-text extraction checked 8 August 2026.
2026-08-10