Wound dressing products: A translational investigation from the bench to the market

• Published in: Engineered regeneration 2022-06, Vol.3 (2), p.182-200
• Main Authors: Laurano, Rossella, Boffito, Monica, Ciardelli, Gianluca, Chiono, Valeria
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Advanced wound care products; Hard-to-close wounds; Medicated wound bandages; Personalized medicine; Regulatory affairs; Wound dressing effectiveness
• ISSN: 2666-1381; 2666-1381
• DOI: 10.1016/j.engreg.2022.04.002

•Designing advanced cost-effective wound dressings is an urgent need worldwide.•Promising in vitro and in vivo results are not often confirmed by Clinical Trials.•The use of personalized treatments can remarkably affect the success of wound management.•An enormous gap still exists between research platforms and commercial products.•Regulatory affairs severely hinder the quick market entry of advanced dressings. Chronic skin wounds affect more than 40 million patients globally and represent a severe growing burden for the healthcare systems, with annual costs expected to exceed $15 billions by 2022. To satisfy the huge demand for effective wound care products, different types of wound dressings have been introduced on the market during the last decades. Based on “the moist wound healing theory” postulated by Prof Winter in 1962, bandages were initially designed to recreate the optimal wound environment to favor the healing process. Then, thanks to the advancements achieved in biomaterial design and processing, biotechnology, imaging and electronic fields, great effort has been devoted to the development of formulations able to actively participate to tissue healing. Indeed, both the literature and the market report the design of medicated wound dressings, i.e., wound care products releasing anti-microbial agents, anti-inflammatory drugs, or bioactive molecules. In this scenario, this review aims at critically describing the currently available wound care products, highlighting their proved effectiveness in wound management. Moreover, an overview of the main strategies exploited to design personalized wound dressings has been reported. Lastly, concerns on regulatory affairs and practical issues limiting the clinical translation of advanced research platforms have also been discussed. [Display omitted]