R Gary Sibbald is Professor, Medicine and Public Health Science; Director of Continuing Education, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto; Director of Dermatology, Daycare and Wound Healing Clinic, Sunnybrook and Women’s Health Sciences Centre; Toronto Wound Healing Centres, Toronto, Ontario; and Chairman (Toronto Meeting 2008) of the World Union of Wound Healing Societies. Adam Katchky ...

The effective management of nonhealing wounds is based on a complete patient history, a detailed initial assessment of the wound, and an analysis of probable causative factors. This information is used to individualize a management strategy to the underlying pathophysiology preventing healing and to implement appropriate wound interventions. Regular reassessment of progress toward healing and a...

BACKGROUND Thermal injury is associated with several biochemical and histopathological alteration in tissue. Analysis of these objective parameters in research and clinical field are common to determine healing rate of burn wound. Negative pressure wound therapy has been achieved wide success in treating chronic wounds. This study determines superficial burn wound healing with intermittent n...

Chronic venous leg ulcers are a major health issue and represent an often overlooked area of biomedical research. Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly evident that new approaches to enhance healing outcomes may arise through better understanding the processes involved in the formation of chronic wounds. We have for the first time shown that the terminal purine catabolite uric acid (UA) is ...

In this study it was determined i) whether an autologous skin substitute (SS) which heals chronic wounds could heal excision wounds, and ii) whether soluble proteins present in chronic and excision wound exudates might influence the potency of the SS and in turn the final outcome of wound healing. For clinical applications, SS were applied to tumor excision wounds. For mechanistic studies, SS c...

Persons with chronic wounds may experience wound-related itch (pruritus) and pain. A cross-sectional study was conducted to examine the occurrence of itch and pain in chronic wounds and the relationship of the intensity between these factors. Patients in an outpatient wound care center, 18 years and older with an open wound, were recruited consecutively over a 5-month period. The 199 participan...

Since its introduction 20 years ago for the treatment of chronic wounds, negative pressure wound therapy use has expanded to a variety of other wound types. Various mechanisms of action for its efficacy in wound healing have been postulated, but no unifying theory exists. Proposed mechanisms include induction of perfusion changes, microdeformation, macrodeformation, exudate control and decreasi...

The aim of this review was to identify whether in adults with chronic wounds the use of honey as a wound dressing improves wound management outcomes. As no randomized controlled trials or comparative studies comparing the use of honey as a chronic wound dressing with usual treatment could be found, the review is based on case studies and serial case studies. These were reviewed using a framewor...

Chronic wounds represent a state where healing has stagnated. Venous, diabetic, and pressure ulcers are typically difficult to heal and are at high risk of becoming chronic. In an attempt to restart the healing of chronic wounds, many biologically important molecules, such as collagen, hyaluronic acid, and growth factors have been used to treat these wounds with varying degrees of success. Unti...

Posnett and Franks (2008) have calculated that 200,000 people in the UK have a chronic wound, with an estimated treatment cost of between £2.3billion and £3.1billion per year. Chronic wounds have proven costly to the NHS due to prolonged treatment periods, frequent dressing changes, more nursing time used and the potential for further deterioration (Harding et al, 2007). The challenge of chroni...