Introduction: Wound healing is one of the most complicated biological events after birth that causes dead tissue replace with new one. Any defect in wound healing, can lead to chronic skin disorders causing severe loss of quality of life and even death. So far, a drug that could effectively promote and advance the natural process of wound healing in the body, has not been introduced. Treatment of wounds and burns, is still one major issue, even in developed countries. Due to importance and value of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects on wound healing, and the presence of these activities in some medicinal plants, in this study, the healing effects of aqueous extract of  Rhus coriaria fruit, was examined.  

Materials and Methods: After creating a full-thickness skin wound on the back of 45 male Sprague-Dawley rats, they were randomly divided into three groups: treatment, control or positive control. After 24 hours, the treatment group received 0.5 gram of the fruit extract, the positive control group treated with 2%mupirocin ointment  and the control group received no treatment. Wound healing rates were calculated on days 0, 3, 5, 8, 10, 12 and 15 post-wounding and the wound tissues were harvested at 5, 10, and 15 days for histological and biochemical analysis. Myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity was used to determine the anti-oxidant and anti- inflamatory activity of the pklant extract. The results were statistically analysed using SPSS software.

Results: The percentage of the wound contraction was significantly increased in days 10, 12 and 15 in the treated group compared to the control group(P<0.01). A significant increase in the assigned histological scores was observed at days 10 and 15  in the treated group compared to the control group (P<0.005 and P<0.05 respectively). This extract significantly decreased the MPO activity 10 days after treatment (P<0.05).

Conclusion: These data provide evidence that Rhus coriaria extract accelerates cutaneous wound healing and its effect may be due to the increased re-epithelialization, collagen deposition and decreased MPO activity and oxidative damage in wound and so it can be used as a therapeutic agent for wound healing.