Multifunctional Alginate Hydrogel Protects and Heals Skin Defects in Complex Clinical Situations

Abstract

Skin defects, soft tissue damage, and fractures often occur simultaneously in severe trauma. Under current medical technology, fractures can be quickly fixed by internal or external repair techniques, and early functional exercises can be performed. However, skin defects heal over a long time and can even be difficult to heal. Functional exercise may cause cutting of fresh granulation to break and impair wound healing. Functional exercise and wound healing seem to contradict each other. In this study, an alginate hydrogel was developed. With self-healing characteristics, the hydrogel tightly adhered to the wound and could self-heal breaks in the gel caused by functional exercises. These characteristics enable this hydrogel to be used in complex clinical situations to solve sports rehabilitation and skin defect repair problems. In addition, this hydrogel can slowly release strontium ions, promote angiogenesis and collagen deposition in the wound, and quickly heal the wound.

Clinical Effectiveness of Free Upper Arm Medial Flap in Repairing Skin and Soft Tissue Defects of the Dorsum of the Hand

“…This method requires multiple operations, a longer period of treatment, and a relatively long wound exposure time, which is likely to cause secondary infection and deep tissue necrosis. Additionally, postoperative wounds are prone to scar contracture, and recovery of hand function is usually poor [ 15 , 16 ]. There are abundant vascular perforations in the skin of the medial aspect of the upper arm, and both the skin and tissue are similar to those at the dorsum of the hand.…”

Hypoxia Preconditioned Serum (HPS)-Hydrogel Can Accelerate Dermal Wound Healing in Mice—An In Vivo Pilot Study

“…Studies have confirmed a promotion of wound healing through effects of AH alone, which are dependent on wound cellular-debridement by macrophage activation, dissolution of necrotic/fibrotic tissue and wound rehydration [ 51 ]. These are properties of AH which lead to faster wound closure, as reported in several rat wound models [ 52 , 53 , 54 ]. Evidently, there must have been a certain compounding effect of AH in the observed HPS-hydrogel acceleration of wound closure.…”

“…Evidently, there must have been a certain compounding effect of AH in the observed HPS-hydrogel acceleration of wound closure. Nonetheless, solely AH-driven promotion of new blood vessel growth could not so far be shown in vitro [ 53 ] and in vivo [ 52 ], while its effects on lymphatic vessels have yet to be investigated. Despite the fact that a control group of AH-only could not be included in this pilot study, which is certainly a limitation of this work, we did see different effects of HPS-dosing (10% vs. 40% concentration) that can only be accounted for by a cumulative effect of HPS growth factor-induced responses, especially in terms of accelerated wound healing, lymphangiogenesis and cell metabolism.…”

Current knowledge of leptin in wound healing: A collaborative review

“…The extracellular matrix (ECM), a three-dimensional molecule network, provides structural integrity and plays a crucial role in cell survival, migration, proliferation, tissue repair, and wound healing. A study showed that fibroblasts can secrete collagen fibers which deposit at the wound to form ECM of the skin ( Lu et al, 2020 ). It is well known that the overproduction of collagen and proteoglycans and impaired degradation of collagen structural matrix could result in excessive scar formation.…”