[Wound healing and wound dressing]

This review article intends to discuss the clinical management of wounds in respect to a pathophysiological background. Recent results of research in the field of wound healing are demonstrated. Wound healing can be seen as aseptic inflammatory response to a traumatic stimulus. The activation of the clotting cascade by the trauma induces a sequence of humoral and cellular reactions. Platelets, granulocytes and macrophages are activated stepwisely. In the first phase of wound healing the wounded tissue area will be prepared for phagocytosis by enzymatic degradation of ground substance and depolymerisation of protein macromolecules (wound edema). Following the phagocytic microdebridement mesenchymal cells proliferate and produce matrix substance. Microcirculation within the traumatized area will be restored by angiogenesis, macroscopically observed as new formed granulation tissue. This leads to the wound healing phase of scar tissue formation. In this complexity of reactions naturally many possibilities of impairment are given. The most common complication during wound healing is the infection. It can be seen as self reinforcing process. The therapy of the impairment of wound healing consists in the disruption of the specific vicious circle, in the case of an osseus infection that would be a macrodebridement (that is necrectomy) and biomechanical stabilization. The surgical management of wounds principally consists in ensuring an undisturbed sequence of the healing process. This can be done by the wound excision that supports the phagocytic microdebridement. A further possibility is to avoid overwhelming formation of edema by eliminating the traumatic stimulus, by immobilization of the injured region and by ensuring a physiological microenvironment with a primary suture if possible. There are up to the present no drugs available to enhance cell proliferation and to regulate wound healing but it seems that experimental research is successful in characterizing substances as growth factors and mediators. A second way of managing is to prevent the wound healing from troubles by using preventive measures: unbroken aseptic chain, stopping bleeding exactly and introducing sufficient drainage, avoiding of ischaemia and last not least inserting foreign substances into the tissue as few as possible.