# Quantification and characterization of collagen in experimentally induced wounds treated with different types of platelet-rich plasma gel

## TL;DR

This study uses fractal dimension to analyze collagen in wounds treated with different types of platelet-rich plasma, showing that autologous PRP promotes better collagenization.

## Contribution

The study introduces fractal dimension as an innovative method to characterize and quantify collagen types in wound healing.

## Key findings

- Autologous PRP significantly increased collagen fiber area compared to the control.
- Fractal dimension effectively differentiated type I and type III collagen fibers.
- Collagenization was higher in autologous PRP compared to heterologous and homologous treatments.

## Abstract

Due to its high concentration of growth factors, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has become the subject of much research, either as an isolated or adjuvant treatment for wound repair. The fractal dimension has been used as an innovative method for the characterization and quantification of tissue structural alterations without any interference from the evaluator. The objective of this study was characterizing collagen types I and III in experimentally induced wounds and treated with different PRP sources by means of fractal dimension and other histological analyzes using blades stained with picrocirius-red and hematoxylin-eosin (HE). In statistical analysis, the variables presented a non-parametric distribution; thus, Mann-Whitney and Kruskall-Wallis tests (p < 0,05) were performed using the Student-Newman-Keuls method. It was observed an increase of the collagen fibers by measuring the area with Threshold Color in the different treatments, especially with autologous PRP (p = 0.009) and heterologous PRP (p = 0.016). The fractal dimension of type I collagen had a significant increase for the autologous group (p = 0.028) in relation to the control, but, on average (p < 0.05), type III collagen was higher than type I. Fractal dimension was efficient to separately characterize type I and type III collagen fibers. In this study, collagenization was higher in autologous when compared to heterologous and homologous PRP treatments.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10561-026-10215-5.