Wound-healing perspectives

Wound-healing in the skin is a complex orchestration of cellular processes, which has been perfected throughout the eons of phylogeny. It has so many coordinated biologic processes invoked both simultaneously and in a regulated orderly fashion that it has been likened to a recapitulation of gestation. Part of the problem with studying wound healing is in analyzing the processes independently and then seeing how they fit together and influence each other. This article discusses selected and recent scientific observations that have given insight into the biology of human skin wound healing. The article then discusses selected clinical advances that are based less on evidence-based observation and more on what works in practice and promotes wound healing.