Novel in vitro approaches for the simulation and analysis of human skin wounds

Considering the increasing incidence of chronic wounds and severe wound infections, effective drug delivery to wounded skin is of high importance. The rational development of novel therapeutic systems requires appropriate in vitro testing methodologies. In this context, suitable and reliable in vitro models simulating human wounds and advanced analytical techniques for precise wound characterization are urgently needed. In this study, we introduce a novel in vitro model based on excised human skin. In contrast to the established wound models, our novel approach has a coffin-shaped, linear, rectangular geometry with defined wound edges exhibiting consistent appearance along the entire wound bed. In addition, we introduce optical profilometry as a novel technique for nondestructive wound analysis. We successfully demonstrate the applicability of this optical imaging method based on white light reflection for three-dimensional visualization of different wound models. Furthermore, we create virtual noninvasive cross sections of these wounds to assess wound geometry in direct comparison to conventional histological analysis. Imaging analysis of our novel coffin-shaped model resulted in reproducible virtual sections along the entire wound bed. Our findings indicate the potential of our novel in vitro model for improved simulation of human wounds. Further, we successfully overcome the limitations of conventional histological analysis by the employment of optical profilometry for nondestructive three-dimensional wound characterization.