Abstract
Wound healing is a common physiological process which consists of a sequence of molecular and cellular events that occur following the onset of a tissue lesion in order to reconstitute barrier between body and external environment. The inherent properties of hydrogels allow the damaged tissue to heal by supporting a hydrated environment which has long been explored in wound management to aid in autolytic debridement. However, chronic non-healing wounds require added therapeutic features that can be achieved by incorporation of biomolecules and supporting cells to promote faster and better healing outcomes. In recent decades, numerous hydrogels have been developed and modified to match the time scale for distinct stages of wound healing. This review will discuss the effects of various types of hydrogels on wound pathophysiology, as well as the ideal characteristics of hydrogels for wound healing, crosslinking mechanism, fabrication techniques and design considerations of hydrogel engineering. Finally, several challenges related to adopting hydrogels to promote wound healing and future perspectives are discussed.
Highlights
As common comorbidities of many chronic diseases, skin wounds and their associated complications are increasing in a severe rate around the world
Xiao et al explored the incorporation of heparin for growth factors (GFs) loading, the results showed that stronger interactions of GFs with heparin slowed down GFs released from HP hydrogels leading to less wound healing efficiency (Wu et al, 2016)
Recent advancements in hydrogel synthesis have enabled scientists to incorporate many of the physicochemical properties of human tissue and facilitating better tissue regeneration
Summary
As common comorbidities of many chronic diseases, skin wounds and their associated complications are increasing in a severe rate around the world. The tuning of crosslinking mechanism and polymer components to achieve good stretchability, compressibility, adhesiveness, and self-healing are similar Those properties could be taken into consideration when designing hydrogel functions. With the skin-mimetic hydrogels as protective barriers to insulate wound bed, the addition of bioactive into the hydrogels is essential to improve wound microenvironment and to promote tissue regeneration Some polymers, such as polycationic chitosan, may exhibit bioactivities and show anti-bacterial effect (Ahmed and Ikram, 2016), utilizing those polymers for hydrogel fabrication would reduce additional additives benefits quality control. Maintain biological and mechanical properties of natural tissues with minimum modifications Fabrication techniques, such as microgel (Griffin et al, 2015; Muir et al, 2021) multilayer, (Li et al, 2019), and 3D printing (Wan et al, 2019) are effective strategies for complicated hydrogel system design based on widely used hydrogel scaffold.
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