Introduction

Authors: Hasan Gökcer Tekin MD., Christian Kaare Paaskesen Med.Stud., Dorte Barrit, Diploma of Health, Specialist nurse in wound care, and Magnus Avnstorp, MD

In this chapter you will learn the different phases of wound healing in acute and chronic wounds.

Definition

When a wound proceeds through all 4 wound healing phases in a timely manner it can be classified as an acute wound (< 6 weeks). In contrary, a chronic wound can be defined as a wound that fails to proceed timely through the wound healing phases without establishing functional anatomical integrity (>6 weeks)

Multiple important factors differ in chronic and acute wounds:

Acute wounds	Chronic Wounds
High level of mitogenic factors	Low level of mitogenic factors
Decreased levels of inflammatory cytokines	High levels of inflammatory cytokines
Low protease activity	High protease activity