Innovative hydrogels in cutaneous wound healing: current status and future perspectives

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)

Chronic wounds pose a substantial burden on healthcare systems, necessitating innovative tissue engineering strategies to enhance clinical outcomes. Hydrogels, both of natural and synthetic origin, have emerged as versatile biomaterials for wound management due to their structural adaptability, biocompatibility, and tunable physicochemical properties. Their hydrophilic nature enables efficient nutrient transport, waste removal, and cellular integration, while their malleability facilitates application to deep and irregular wounds, providing an optimal microenvironment for cell adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation. Extracellular matrix (ECM)- based hydrogels retain bioactive molecules that support cellular infiltration, immune modulation, and tissue remodelling, making them highly effective scaffolds for growth factor delivery and regenerative therapies. Additionally, their injectability and potential for in situ polymerization enable minimally invasive applications, allowing on-demand gelation at target sites. By modifying their mechanical properties through crosslinking, hydrogels can achieve enhanced structural stability, prolonged degradation control, and improved surgical handling, optimizing their functionality in dynamic wound environments. This review outlines current approaches to skin tissue engineering, examining the biomaterials employed in hydrogel design, t

Evidence level

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

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