Skin barrier before and after topical adipose stem cell-conditioned medium (Asc-cm) treatment in photoaging

Background: Photoaging is a type of aging mainly caused by ultraviolet irradiation. The skin barrier is affected in photoaging and it will result in coarseness, roughness and dry skin. It is probably because Ultraviolet (UV) affects the extracellular matrix in the skin. Adipose Stem Cell-Conditioned Medium (ASC-CM), which contains many growth factors, becomes a potential agent as a novel anti-photoaging treatment by repairing the skin barrier. This study aims to evaluate the skin barrier function before and after treatment with ASC-CM in photoaging skin by evaluating changes in Transepidermal Water Loss (TEWL) and skinfold thickness. Methods: A true experimental study was conducted among 28 male Wistar rats aged 10-12 weeks. They were acclimated for 1 week and randomly divided into 4 groups: UV irradiated group with topical ASC-CM (Group P1); UV irradiated group with topical vehicle only (Group P2); only topical ASC-CM, non-UV irradiated (Group P3), and non-UV irradiated and no topical treatment (Group P0). The ASC-CM was given twice a day for four weeks and the total irradiance dose for 6 weeks was 4,2 J/ cm². Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20 for Windows. Results: There was a statistically significant difference of TEWL between pre-and post-treatment in group P3 (p=0.043) and P0 (p=0.018). In addition, a statistically significant difference in skin thickness was also found between pre-and posttreatment in group P2 (p=0.005) and P3 (p=0.003). There was a statistically significant difference in skin thickness posttreatment (p=0.000); however, there was no statistically significant difference of TEWL post-treatment by One-Way ANOVA test (p=0.138). Conclusion: ASC-CM could be a potential option for photoaging skin based on the TEWL and skin thickness evaluation. However, a longer study period was needed to know the further effect of ASC-CM.