The Current Standing Of Research On Stem Cell Therapies For Wound Healing

By Monika Vinish, Ph.D.

Wound healing is a complicated and dynamic process that includes multiple overlapping phases. Adequate wound healing is crucial to avoid risk of infections, prolonged hospitalization, and poor quality of life.

Despite advances in wound care, chronic wounds heal slowly, if at all. Current treatment involves long hospital stays and long-term care. Wound-related treatment and associated complications costs the United States healthcare system $20 billion annually.

To control costs and improve outcomes for wound-care patients, researchers are turning to regenerative medicine; specifically, stem cell therapy. Similar to its potential to treat conditions such as diabetes, osteoarthritis and traumatic brain injury, stem cell therapy for wound healing takes advantage of stem cells’ ability to renew and divide into multiple cell types to rebuild damaged tissue.