Environmental, Nutritional, and Therapeutic Factors That Affect Surgical Wound Healing: A Narrative Review of Experimental Findings From the Last 5 Years

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Background and aims Wound healing is a crucial aspect of clinical outcomes following surgical procedures. Various physiological, environmental, and lifestyle factors impact healing time and quality. Methods This review is based on the latest experimental findings pertaining to surgical wound management and healing, based on a PubMed search of experiments from the last 5 years. Topics of interest were infection control, nutrition, radiation-induced skin injury (RSI), and closed-incisional negative pressure wound therapy (CiNPWT). The study mainly assesses wound healing by primary intention and focuses on easily implemented therapies. Results 403 articles were screened regarding infection prevention with 336 excluded based on title and preview of content. 67 abstracts were further reviewed which yielded 32 articles for analysis. Overall, povidone-iodine is shown to improve the rate of wound healing and helps minimize complications such as infections or wound dehiscence while creating a sterile field due to its antimicrobial properties. It remains a standard of comparison for other anti-infectives. Nutritional factors such as veganism may impair surgical wound healing, whereas maintaining appropriate albumin levels may be protective. Employment of nutritional screenings may improve overall outcomes post-operatively, and oral probiotics improve soft tissue healing after incision, i

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

Browse all related research

Filter the research library by this study's title keywords, author, or publication year.