Clinical Plasma Medicine: State and Perspectives of in Vivo Application of Cold Atmospheric Plasma

Driven by extensive basic research on plasma effects on living cells and microorganisms, plasma medicine has been developed as innovative medical research field during the last years. Besides partially established applications of plasma to treat materials or devices to allow effective medical applications with respect to biocompatibility or microbiological safety, respectively, the primary focus of plasma‐medical research is the direct application of plasma as part of therapeutic concepts. Even if a huge number of atmospheric pressure plasma sources for biomedical applications are described in the literature and characterized by in vitro microbiology and cell biology, there is only a limited number of in vivo experience with animals or human beings up to now. Research in plasma medicine has been mainly focused on applications in dermatology and aesthetic surgery with the aim to support tissue regeneration to improve healing of infected and/or chronic wounds as well as to treat infective and inflamed skin diseases. In general, there are four cold atmospheric plasma sources which were tested comprehensively in animals as well as human beings with respect both to its therapeutic potential and the safety of its application. Three clinical trials with cold atmospheric pressure plasma sources have been carried out yet. All three studies realized in Germany are focused on ulcer treatment. Two cold atmospheric pressure plasma sources got a CE marking as medical device in 2013. This marks a very important step to bring plasma medicine into the clinical daily routine! In future, it will become a general practical requirement to adapt special plasma sources to specific medical applications. Consequently, it is one of the main requirements for the physical and technical field of research and development in plasma medicine to find solutions for modular and flexible plasma devices which are adaptive to some extent e.g. to variable target areas. Based on this as well as together with comprehensive basic research to get much more insight into detailed mechanisms of plasma‐induced effects on living structures and the particular role of single plasma components, further fields of plasma application in vivo will be opened or extended, respectively, with both new targets like cancer treatment or new application sites like teeth, lung, eyes, nasal cavity or gastrointestinal tract. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)