Acute wound healing: the biology of acute wound failure

Acute wound healing failure is an important source of morbidity and mortality for surgical patients. Many incisional hernias, gastrointestinal anastomotic leaks, and vascular pseudoaneurysms occur despite patient optimization and standardized surgical technique. Modern surgical experience suggests that biologic and mechanical pathways overlap during "normal" acute wound healing. The cellular and molecular processes activated to repair tissue from the moment of injury are under the control of biologic and mechanical signals. Successful acute wound healing occurs when a dynamic balance is met between the loads placed across a provisional matrix and the feedback and feed-forward responses of repair cells.