Wound Healing

Wound healing, or wound repair, is the body's natural process of regenerating dermal and epidermal tissue. When an individual is wounded, a set of events takes place in a predictable fashion to repair the damage. These events overlap in time and must be artificially categorized into separate steps: the inflammatory, proliferative, and remodeling phases . The wound healing process can be applied to both acute and chronic wounds
For a chronic wound to heal as quickly as possible, it must be recognized at onset or soon thereafter and be treated appropriately. Four stages of chronic wounds have been identified, with Stage I as initial onset and Stage IV as the most advanced stage. If a chronic wound progresses to Stage IV, there is a high likelihood that the patient will suffer complications including amputation, sepsis, and other serious consequences of an improperly treated chronic wound. To provide the best chance for chronic wounds to heal, the surgeon should attempt to identify any factors that may be acting to impede success, and then correct the problem through optimization of the cellular and molecular wound environment. 

The basis for correct treatment of chronic wounds is a standard protocol that is administered in a systematic manner. The Wound Healing Center has established standard protocols that have achieved significant improvements in the time to substantial improvement of wounds and wound closure-regardless of the wound type. It is critical that clinicians utilize all available methods of wound treatment, including relatively new therapies like skin cell matrices/human skin equivalents. Diabetic foot ulcers can occur in any person with diabetes who has a break in the skin. Pressure ulcers can occur in any bed- or wheelchair-bound patient. Pressure ulcers may remain unnoticed for a substantial period of time. Sickle cell ulcers are a complication associated with sickle cell disease, an inherited hemoglobinopathy most common among African Americans. Following significant weight loss due to a bariatric surgery (also known as gastric bypass surgery), diet, or exercise, women and men often elect to have various cosmetic procedures to help them achieve the body shape that they seek. Following significant weight loss, a person can be left with a tremendous amount of excess, hanging skin throughout many areas of the body that cannot shrink back to the person's new body shape. Since Liposuction does not reduce the amount of skin present the best results are obtained in those patients with good skin tone/elasticity because their skin readily contracts to the newly contoured frame. Once all of the necessary cosmetic procedures are done, the cosmetic results can be extremely rewarding to the patient in physical, emotional, lifestyle, and functional respects.