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Abstract

Wound healing is a complex physiological activity that occurs in the body when cell tissue is injured. 1 The process occurs in four overlapping stages and includes many different cytokines, mediators, and the vascular system. The four stages include homeostasis, inflammation, proliferation, and tissue remodeling. The inflammation and proliferation stages overlap each other and use similar cell types. The whole wound-healing process takes a couple of days to seal the wound but years for it to completely heal. 1Once a wound has been created the homeostasis stage begins immediately to help control the bleeding. 2 The body begins with vascular constriction and fibrin clots to stop the bleeding. Several growth factors: (TGF)-β, platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), fibroblast growth factor (FGF), and epidermal growth factor (EGF) are released to help repair the tissue. 2 The wound healing-healing process moves onto the inflammatory stage once the inflammatory cells move to the wound. The inflammation cells are followed by neutrophils, macrophages, and lymphocytes to help prevent infection and remove anything that would hamper the wound-healing process. The proliferation stage occurs during the inflammation stage with the introduction of macrophages. 3 The macrophages are important to heal cell tissues in the wound. The proliferation stage helps repair and create new tissue for the wound. Fibroblasts and endothelial cells are released during this stage to help create new cells that were lost from the wound. 3