title: Burn wound healing: present concepts, treatment strategies and future directions.
abstract: Burns are the most extensive forms of soft tissue injuries occasionally resulting in extensive and deep wounds and death. Burns can lead to severe mental and emotional distress, because of excessive scarring and skin contractures. Treatment of burns has always been a difficult medical problem and many different methods have been used to treat such injuries, locally. Biofilms are a collection of microorganisms that delay wound healing. One of the new methods of prevention and treatment of burn wound infections is application of antimicrobials, which act on biofilms and prevent the wound infection. Biofilm initiates a persistent, low-grade, inflammatory response, impairing both the epithelialisation and granulation tissue formation. Skin grafts have been shown to dramatically reduce deaths from infection. However, grafting has considerable limitations. Such injuries are long-lasting and many patients suffer from chronic pain for a long time. Tissue engineering is a new approach in reducing the limitations of conventional treatments and producing a supply of immunologically tolerant artificial tissue, leading to a permanent solution for damaged tissues; such criteria make it a cost-effective and reliable treatment modality. To overcome the present limitations of burn wound healing, knowledge about the latest findings regarding healing mechanisms is important. Here the authors discuss the most important events regarding burn wound healing and review the latest treatment strategies that have been used for burn wounds from in vitro to clinical levels. Finally, we discuss the role of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine in the future of burn wound healing, modelling and remodelling.
authors.affiliation: Professor, Department of Pathology, School of Veterinary Medicine, Shiraz University, Iran.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Oryan
authors.affiliation: PhD student, Department of Biotechnology, School of Veterinary Medicine, Shiraz University, Iran.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Alemzadeh
authors.affiliation: Assistant Professor, Division of Regenerative Pharmacology, RAZI Drug Research Centre, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; and Division of Surgery and Radiology, Department of Clinical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, Shiraz University, Iran.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Moshiri
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002056:Burns / Q000628:therapy*; D015316:Genetic Therapy; D006801:Humans; D016038:Skin Transplantation; D033581:Stem Cell Transplantation; D013234:Stem Cells; D023822:Tissue Engineering; D014945:Wound Healing
keywords: biofilm; burn wounds; regenerative medicine; skin grafts; tissue engineering