Wounds are estimated to account for almost 3% of total health system costs in Europe1 and in the US health care system affects millions of patients costing an estimated $20 billion annually (2021)3.
Any tissue injury with an anatomical integrity disruption and a loss of functionality can be described as a wound. A skin wound results from the breakdown of the epidermal layer integrity. When we talk about wound healing, we mostly mean the healing of the skin and underlying associated tissue. The natural wound healing process begins immediately after an injury to the epidermal layer and might last for years. This dynamic process includes the highly organized cellular, humoral, and molecular mechanisms2.
Wound healing has 4 overlapping phases which are hemostasis, inflammation, proliferation, and remodeling3.
Any disruption during these phases leads to abnormal wound healing2.
1 Lindholm C, Searle R. Wound management for the 21st century: combining effectiveness and efficiency. Int Wound J. 2016;13 Suppl 2(Suppl 2):5-15.
2Ozgok Kangal MK, Regan JP. Wound Healing. StatPearls 2021
3 Wound Healing And Repair: Overview, Types Of Wound Healing, Categories Of Wound Healing”. Emedicine.Medscape.Com, 2022
Up to 2 million people across Europe live with a chronic wound1.
In the US, chronic wounds affect around 6.5 million people at any one time1.
A chronic wound is a wound that has failed to heal for a time span defined in the range of 4 weeks up to more than 3 months. Based on the causative etiologies, the Wound Healing Society classifies chronic wounds into four categories: pressure ulcers, diabetic ulcers, venous ulcers, and arterial insufficiency ulcers2. Traumatic wounds, surgical incisions and burns can also turn into chronic wounds3. Often disguised as a comorbid condition; chronic wounds represent a silent epidemic that affects a large fraction of the world population. Complications of chronic wounds include infection such as cellulitis and infective venous eczema, gangrene, hemorrhage, and lower-extremity amputations. Chronic wounds lead to disability and disability worsens wound outcomes, resulting in a vicious cycle2.
1 Lindholm C, Searle R. Wound management for the 21st century: combining effectiveness and efficiency. Int Wound J. 2016;13 Suppl 2(Suppl 2):5-15.
2 Järbrink, K., Ni, G., Sönnergren, H. et al. Prevalence and incidence of chronic wounds and related complications: a protocol for a systematic review. Syst Rev 5,2016
3 Better health channel. Wounds – how to care for them. (https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/wounds-how-to-care-for-them)
