The Clinical Uses of Collagen-Based Matrices in the Treatment of Chronic Wounds

Abstract

Chronic wounds are defined as wounds that fail to heal completely at the pace and order observed in normal phases of wound healing. Whereas acute wounds proceed through the normal stages of wound healing, the healing process in chronic wounds does not allow for regeneration and repair. Collagen, essential for all phases of the wound-healing cas-cade, only exists at lower levels in chronic wounds than in normal tissue or acute wounds, as do other extracellular matrix components. Therefore, application of collagen-based matrices is believed to modulate the chronic wound environment and contribute to wound healing in a variety of ways. The collagen-based matrices facilitate chemotaxis and mi-gration of cells such as fibroblasts. These biomaterials provide the structural scaffold, which encourages new tissue regeneration and protects proteins involved in the process of wound healing, thereby restoring the wound environment to normal and promoting the healing. We used collagen-based matrices for the treatment of chronic wounds with various etiologies, including surgical wounds, diabetic ulcers, traumatic wounds, chronic vascular ulcers, and in preparation for skin grafts. The clinical results in the case report suggest that collagen-based matrices could be a reasonable treatment option for chronic wounds.