An animal model for chronic ulceration.

Few techniques are available for the study of persistent ulceration. In this report we describe a suitable animal model. Intracutaneous injection of sodium tetradecyl sulphate (STD) in guinea-pig flank skin caused a reproducibly sized and shaped superficial ulcer that healed approximately three times more slowly than punch biopsies of comparable size. Histological, immunofluorescent and autoradiographic studies showed that it possesses many of the morphological and kinetic features of human stasis ulceration. STD ulcers treated with a streptokinase/streptodornase solution healed with less slough and tended to re-epithelialize more rapidly than controls, but ulcers treated with dextran polymer beads or a stabilized hydrogen peroxide cream healed at the same rate as their control.