Microneedle-integrated biosensors for smart wound monitoring

The process of wound healing after an injury is a complex and tightly regulated phenomenon, which can sometimes become arrested, leading to the formation of wounds that fail to heal in a timely manner (chronic wounds, CWs). Today, CWs are a rising global healthcare problem, aggravated by the increase in obesity and diabetes. They affect millions of people worldwide, deeply restricting their quality of life and often leading to amputations or even death. Moreover, pathogenic microorganisms colonize 60-80% of these wounds, further delaying healing and worsening patient outcomes. To monitor this condition, patients are subjected to frequent visual inspections of the wound area, which can disturb healing, and sometimes painful, resource-draining biopsies that take days to yield results. The past decade has been marked by a boom in smart dressings, which aim not only to facilitate healing but also to monitor the wound environment. Likewise, microneedle-based (MN-based) devices have been gaining traction as promising alternatives to conventional laboratory-based analysis. In light of these advancements, the number of publications on MN-integrated biosensors for monitoring infected and CWs increased significantly last year, reflecting the growing interest of the research community in this topic and the urgent societal need for these devices. As such, this article aims to review and critically analyze recent trends in the design and development of MN-based sensing platforms for the wound environment, to gain new insights that could accelerate the introduction of minimally invasive sensing products for CW management into the market.