Self-Healing Hydrogels: Advancing Wound Care

What is it about?

The evolving field of wound care has advanced with self-healing hydrogels, offering new ways to enhance tissue regeneration. Unlike traditional wound dressings, which prevent infection but cannot autonomously respond to damage, self-healing hydrogels can self-repair, maintain structural integrity, and provide controlled therapeutic functions. These hydrogels mimic the extracellular matrix, enabling moisture retention, controlled drug delivery, and improved cellular interactions. Natural polymers like chitosan, collagen, and hyaluronic acid provide biocompatibility and bioactivity, while synthetic polymers such as polyethylene glycol (PEG), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), and polyacrylamide (PAM) offer mechanical stability and durability. Hybrid hydrogels combining both types balance structural resilience and bioactivity, optimizing wound healing. Despite their promise, challenges remain for clinical adoption including production scalability, cost, long-term biocompatibility, and degradation behavior. Synthetic hydrogels often need biofunctionalization to enhance cellular interaction, and their slow degradation can cause material accumulation. Hybrid systems show potential but require further optimization.

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Why is it important?

This review highlights the mechanical, degradation, and biological performance of self-healing hydrogels in wound care and addresses challenges such as personalized treatment needs, regulatory issues, and cost barriers. Future directions include intelligent, stimuli-responsive materials, advanced manufacturing, and real-time monitoring technologies to improve outcomes for chronic and complex wounds.