Biomechanical modeling of progressive wound healing: A computational study

Abstract

Skin injury is the most common type of injury, which manifests itself in the form of wounds and cuts. Wound healing, which typically involves the formation of a clot, is a complex phenomenon involving mechanical and biochemical processes. While micro-level cellular wound healing mechanisms have been studied widely, studies on macro-level biomechanics have been limited to standard wound geometries and sizes. In this work, realistic wound geometries were modelled for the first time using finite element method (FEM), and stresses and strains generated due to the skin's natural tension during progressive wound healing were characterized. A range of diabetic, venous, pressure, and ulcer wounds were studied, and the induced stresses during different healing phases were compared. This knowledge would be indispensable for pre-surgical planning and robotic surgeries, for selecting appropriate wound closure techniques, which do not overstrain the skin tissue or initiate tearing. We anticipate that this work will enable further advances in wound healing research and can be used to deliver novel insights into the improvement of the wound healing process.