Cellular senescence is a promising target for chronic wounds: a comprehensive review.

Chunmeng Shi,Ziwen Wang

doi:10.1093/burnst/tkaa021

Abstract

Chronic wounds include, but are not limited to, radiation ulcers, pressure ulcers, vascular ulcers and diabetic foot ulcers. These chronic wounds can persist for years without healing and severe ulcers may lead to amputation. Unfortunately, the underlying pathologies of refractory chronic wounds are not fully characterized, and new treatments are urgently needed. Recently, increasing evidence has indicated that cell senescence plays an important role in the development of chronic wounds, and preventing cell senescence or removing senescent cells holds promise as a new therapeutic strategy. In this review, we aim to probe these latest findings to promote the understanding of cellular senescence in the pathological process and potential management of chronic wounds.

Highlights

Chronic wounds do not progress in a timely manner during the healing process, causing a huge financial and medical burden on the health system [1, 2]
Chronic wounds are a huge challenge for wound-care researchers and clinicians
The use of advanced treatment modalities, such as tissue replacement and growth factors, may offer a strategy to accelerate wound closure in chronic wounds; some wounds still show no response to these treatments

Summary

Introduction

Chronic wounds do not progress in a timely manner during the healing process, causing a huge financial and medical burden on the health system [1, 2]. Chronic wounds can be classified as radiation ulcers and non-radiation ulcers, including pressure ulcers, diabetic foot ulcers and vascular ulcers (including venous and arterial ulcers) [3]. The common features of these wounds include persistent infection, prolonged or exaggerated inflammation, failure of epidermal and/or dermal cells to respond to repair stimuli and the formation of biofilms caused by resistant microorganisms [3, 7]. These pathophysiological phenomena contribute to the failure of wound healing, but the underlying pathologies are numerous or even unclear in different chronic wounds. Based on these new advances, we hypothesize that cellular senescence is a promising target for chronic wounds

Objectives

Findings

Conclusion