Author Spotlight: Investigating Wound Healing in Mice Models of Oronasal Fistulas

Our research has focused on how to establish the stable and standardized mouse model of oronasal fistula. This protocol has also demonstrated the body weight changes, wound size changes, and the histologic features of the oral nasal fistula formation. The current experimental challenges of establishing oronasal fistula models are the mice mortality by suffocation or blood loss as well as the standardization of the wound size.

Our protocol significantly reduces the amount of bleeding in mice during surgery relative to the traditional use of a biopsy punch. This reduces the risk of suffocation due to severe bleeding. Additionally, our experimental method is also simpler and less technically sensitive.

Our future research aims to focus on observing the inflammatory response during oronasal fistula formation. We also plan on developing novel strategies to reduce the inflammatory response while promoting palatal wound healing to reduce the incidence of oronasal fistula.