Wound Healing

The restoration of injured tissue takes place through a tightly choreographed continuum of overlapping inflammatory, proliferative, and remodeling phases. With distinctive variations, all tissues including skin, bone, and nerve underdo similar pathways to tissue repair or regeneration. The nature and quality of the healing is affected by local (degree of injury, growth factors, tissue ischemia, infection) and systemic (metabolic disease, immunocompromise) factors as well as age, nutritional state, smoking, and exposure to radiation therapy. Approaches to facilitate the repair of wounds at risk for compromised healing range from tissue handling and local care to use of biologic or engineered biopolymeric grafts or therapeutic interventions involving sustained delivery of growth factors and stem cell therapy.