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Healing Chronic Wounds: Current Challenges and Potential Solutions

  • Wound Care and Healing (H Lev-Tov, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Dermatology Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose of Review

The purpose of this review is to raise awareness, examine the challenges faced by wound care researchers, and explore opportunities for potential improvements.

Recent Findings

Chronic wounds are associated with significant morbidity and mortality, and they represent a major medical and financial burden. Despite this, no new therapy has received FDA efficacy approval for the treatment of chronic wounds since 1997. Previous preclinical studies using animal models did not translate to human wounds due to inherent limitations of experimental models, variability in assessment methods, and overall experimental design. Clinical trials continued to be challenged by the balance of the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the high cost and time expenditure of the trials, and the constraint of a single FDA-acceptable outcome of complete wound closure.

Summary

Wound research faces multiple challenges in both preclinical and clinical research that slowed progress and development of efficacious therapies. Solutions to such challenges will provide new opportunities for improved study design in the future.

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Acknowledgments

Our research was funded in part by the NIH (NR015649, DK098055, NR013881 to MTC), and the UMSDRC Department of Dermatology and Cutaneous Surgery of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, and SAC-2016-9R1 award (to MTC).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wound Healing and Regenerative Medicine Research Program, Department of Dermatology and Cutaneous Surgery, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, 1600 NW 10th Ave., RMSB 2023, Miami, FL, 33136, USA

    Evan Darwin & Marjana Tomic-Canic

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Correspondence to Marjana Tomic-Canic.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Wound Care and Healing

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Darwin, E., Tomic-Canic, M. Healing Chronic Wounds: Current Challenges and Potential Solutions. Curr Derm Rep 7, 296–302 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13671-018-0239-4

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