Modifications of Wound Dressings with Bioactive Agents to Achieve Improved Pro-Healing Properties

Abstract

The great variety of wounds and the lack of an effective universal treatment method has resulted in high demand for modern treatment strategies. Traditional approaches are often ineffective on a variety of chronic wounds, such as venous ulcers or the diabetic foot ulcer. There is strong evidence that naturally derived bioactive compounds have pro-healing properties, raising a great interest in their potential use for wound healing. Plant-derived compounds, such as curcumin and essential oils, are widely used to modify materials applied as wound dressings. Moreover, dressing materials are more often enriched with vitamins (e.g., L-ascorbic acid, tocopherol) and drugs (e.g., antibiotics, inhibitors of proteases) to improve the skin healing rate. Biomaterials loaded with the above-mentioned molecules show better biocompatibility and are basically characterized by better biological properties, ensuring faster tissue repair process. The main emphasis of the presented review is put on the novel findings concerning modern pro-healing wound dressings that have contributed to the development of regenerative medicine. The article briefly describes the synthesis and modifications of biomaterials with bioactive compounds (including curcumin, essential oils, vitamins) to improve their pro-healing properties. The paper also summarizes biological effects of the novel wound dressings on the enhancement of skin regeneration. The current review was prepared based on the scientific contributions in the PubMed database (supported with Google Scholar searching) over the past 5 years using relevant keywords. Scientific reports on the modification of biomaterials using curcumin, vitamins, and essential oils were mainly considered.

Advancements in Skin Delivery of Natural Bioactive Products for Wound Management: A Brief Review of Two Decades

“…Composite dressings can contain natural products for delivery or be composed of a natural product itself [ 121 ]. An example of such a dressing was created by Gao et al, who used chitosan and diazo resin to create a hydrogel composite dressing [ 27 ].…”

Marine Polysaccharides for Wound Dressings Application: An Overview

“…This leads to an imbalance between the regulatory molecules involved in healing and thus hinders wound healing. It is also considered to be the most common factor affecting the deterioration of acute wounds into chronic wounds [292]. Some MPs, such as CS, have good antibacterial properties under acidic conditions.…”

“…Natural antimicrobial agents have shown the advantage of high biosafety. Honey, essential oils, tannins, active amino acids and peptides, hesperidin, etc., have been widely used in recent years [65,292,[307][308][309]. Some studies reported that the addition of Manuka honey to MPs dressings showed good antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Proteus mirabilis [248,310].…”

Current Trends in Advanced Alginate-Based Wound Dressings for Chronic Wounds

“…When a patient is unable to move, pressure ulcers may appear. Such a case was also healed after several dressings were applied, including a honey-loaded alginatebased product, named Algivon ® [131,132]. An improved version of this dressing, Algivon ® Plus, showed good clinical results when applied on chronic wounds [133].…”