Wearable (bio)sensors for wound healing monitoring: recent achievements, challenges, and future directions

Wound treatment costs are estimated to reach over 20 billion USD in the case of chronic wounds. Hence, the methods of monitoring the stage of healing are of high importance. It should be emphasized that traditionally applied methods, including visual examination as well as bacterial cell cultivation, are not precise and might be lengthy. Therefore, there is a great need for elaboration of novel approaches in controlling the healing process as well as enhancing it through novel drug delivery systems that can be realized using wearable sensors. Such an approach contributes to the minimization of patient discomfort and enables the live determination of the actual stage of wound healing. Herein, we present a critical review of current examples of such devices (presented from 2021 to 2025), as well as the characterization of basics such as the wound healing process and materials applied for sensors' fabrication. In the final part, we depict the challenges, including signal drift or nonspecific adsorption on the sensor surface, and future perspectives of the application of such noninvasive sensors in clinical diagnostics.