Mini-encyclopaedia of the wound healing - Opportunities for integrating multi-omic approaches into medical practice

Abstract

Wound healing is a highly complex life-important repair process triggered by plenty of local and/or systemic organ and tissue damaging events, such as an acute surgical invasion, accidental organ and tissue damages, acute and chronic diseases, aggressive local and systemic therapeutic approaches (e.g. irradiation and systemic chemotherapy). Individual health condition determines over the quality of wound healing. Impaired wound healing, in turn, may lead, for example, to post-surgical complications frequently observed in elderly, chronic ulcers in diabetic patients, hindered and ineffective pain management, etc. However, these well-acknowledged examples are just the tip of the iceberg. The entire spectrum of potential consequences is much broader. Therefore, all the aspects of wound healing need to receive a dedicated attention of many specialised medical fields and healthcare as a whole. In contrast, there is still strongly limited knowledge collected regarding the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the physiological versus impaired wound healing. The contents of this article might be of great importance for multi-professional considerations as well as for the experts working in specific fields such as clinical proteomics, general practice, laboratory medicine, surgery including plastic surgery and aesthetic medicine, gerontology, psychology, diabetology, endocrinology, oncology, cardiovascular disease, radiology, and healthcare economy.

Significance: The contents of this article are strongly motivated by the particular value of wound healing quality for medical care and might be of great importance for multi-professional considerations and experts working in specialised fields: predictive and preventive medicine, general practitioners, laboratory medicine, surgery including plastic surgery and aesthetic medicine, gerontology, psychology, diabetology, endocrinology, oncology, cardiovascular disease, radiology, and healthcare economy. The article is aiming at both educational and scientific purposes: on one side it summarises comprehensive information available regarding wound healing mechanisms and molecular pathways involved. On the other side the article provides highly innovative hypotheses for multi-professional considerations relevant for several research fields which may potentially advance medical services in the close future such as clinical proteomics and multi-omics.

Keywords: Aesthetic medicine; Cardiovascular disease; Diabetology; Endocrinology; General practitioners; Gerontology; Healthcare economy; Laboratory medicine; Oncology; Predictive preventive personalised medicine; Psychology; Radiology; Surgery; Wound healing.