Chronic wounds are a major health problem for diabetic patients and the elderly—in extreme cases they can even lead to amputation. Using electric stimulation, researchers in a project at Chalmers University of Technology, ...
Apr 18, 2023
1
2708
Researchers at Lund University in Sweden, have in collaboration with colleagues in Copenhagen and Singapore, mapped how the body's own peptides act to reduce infection and inflammation by deactivating the toxic substances ...
Aug 13, 2018
0
558
Scientists have engineered a synthetic biodegradable foam that can suppress inflammation, promote blood vessel growth and support the rapid healing of chronic skin wounds, an innovation that may one day improve treatment ...
A team of researchers working at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China has developed an electrically charged thin film patch for promoting faster wound healing. In their paper published in the journal ...
What do a scraped knee, a paper cut, or any form of surgery have in common? The short answer is a wound in need of healing—but the long answer lies in a series of biological activities that allow tissues to repair themselves.
The CRISPR genome editing technique promises to be a "transformative leap" in genetic engineering and therapy, affecting almost every area of medicine. That includes plastic surgery, with potential advances ranging from prevention ...
Oct 30, 2018
0
1
A new study shows that e-cigarette vaping negatively affects skin wound healing, causing damage similar to that of traditional cigarette smoking. Researchers, led by a team from Boston Medical Center (BMC), found exposure ...
Oct 18, 2018
0
10
(HealthDay)—Isotretinoin may impair wound healing after tattooing, according to a case report published online June 16 in the International Journal of Dermatology.
Jun 22, 2017
0
0
New research presented at this week's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Amsterdam, Netherlands (13-16 April) shows that a formulation containing zinc oxide is effective at reducing ...
Apr 13, 2019
0
7
Diabetic patients whose natural wound-healing capabilities are compromised often develop chronic wounds that are slow to heal. Such non-healing wounds could cause serious infections resulting in painful outcomes, such as ...
Oct 19, 2023
0
226
Wound healing, or wound repair, is an intricate process in which the skin (or some other organ) repairs itself after injury. In normal skin, the epidermis (outermost layer) and dermis (inner or deeper layer) exists in a steady-stated equilibrium, forming a protective barrier against the external environment. Once the protective barrier is broken, the normal (physiologic) process of wound healing is immediately set in motion. The classic model of wound healing is divided into three or four sequential, yet overlapping, phases: (1) hemostasis (not considered a phase by some authors), (2) inflammatory, (3) proliferative and (4) remodeling.
Upon injury to the skin, a set of complex biochemical events takes place in a closely orchestrated cascade to repair the damage. Within minutes post-injury, platelets (thrombocytes) aggregate at the injury site to form a fibrin clot. This clot acts to control active bleeding (hemostasis).
In the inflammatory phase, bacteria and debris are phagocytized and removed, and factors are released that cause the migration and division of cells involved in the proliferative phase.
The proliferative phase is characterized by angiogenesis, collagen deposition, granulation tissue formation, epithelialization, and wound contraction. In angiogenesis, new blood vessels are formed by vascular endothelial cells. In fibroplasia and granulation tissue formation, fibroblasts grow and form a new, provisional extracellular matrix (ECM) by excreting collagen and fibronectin. Concurrently, re-epithelialization of the epidermis occurs, in which epithelial cells proliferate and 'crawl' atop the wound bed, providing cover for the new tissue.
In contraction, the wound is made smaller by the action of myofibroblasts, which establish a grip on the wound edges and contract themselves using a mechanism similar to that in smooth muscle cells. When the cells' roles are close to complete, unneeded cells undergo apoptosis.
In the maturation and remodeling phase, collagen is remodeled and realigned along tension lines and cells that are no longer needed are removed by apoptosis.
However, this process is not only complex but fragile, and susceptible to interruption or failure leading to the formation of chronic non-healing wounds. Factors which may contribute to this include diabetes, venous or arterial disease, old age, and infection.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
