Wound dressings as growth factor delivery platforms for chronic wound healing

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Years of tissue engineering research have clearly demonstrated the potential of integrating growth factors (GFs) into scaffolds for tissue regeneration, a concept that has recently been applied to wound dressings. The old concept of wound dressings that only take a passive role in wound healing has now been overtaken, and advanced dressings which can take an active part in wound healing, are of current research interest.

Areas covered: In this review we will focus on the recent strategies for the delivery of GFs to wound sites with an emphasis on the different approaches used to achieve fine tuning of spatial and temporal concentrations to achieve therapeutic efficacy.

Expert opinion: The use of GFs to accelerate wound healing and reduce scar formation is now considered a feasible therapeutic approach in patients with a high risk of infections and complications. The integration of micro – and nanotechnologies into wound dressings could be the key to overcome the inherent instability of GFs and offer adequate control over the release rate. Many investigations have led to encouraging outcomes in various in vitro and in vivo wound models, and it is expected that some of these technologies will satisfy clinical needs and will enter commercialization.

KEYWORDS:

• Wound healing
• growth factors
• wound dressing
• drug delivery
• nanotechnologies
• chronic wound

Acknowledgments

Figure 3 was prepared using Servier Medical Art, available from www.servier.com/Powerpoint-image-bank.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Article highlights

• Polymeric wound dressings and scaffolds have the potential to serve as platforms for delivering growth factors directly to chronic wound sites.

• Direct delivery of growth factors has the potential to shorten the healing time for chronic ulcers and eliminate or significantly reduce scar formation after healing.

• Direct delivery of plain growth factors to wounds still face the challenge of achieving effective therapeutic doses due to dilution by exudate and enzymatic degradation. Therefore, encapsulation using micro-and nano- particles before loading into dressing matrix in the form of a composite system, represent a viable approach to overcome this limitation.

• Blood derived products such as platelet-rich plasma, platelet-rich fibrin and platelet lysate represent an important reservoir to enable delivery of multiple growth factors in a single administration.

• New technologies such as electrospinning and 3D printing represent a novel approach that can overcome the problem of achieving the correct spatiotemporal delivery of growth factors to mimic their physiological performance in vivo.

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