A mathematical model may help clinicians speed the healing of persistent bedsores, diabetic ulcers and other types of chronic wounds, scientists report online September 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Chronic wounds are a serious public health problem, affecting 6.5 million people in the United States, says study coauthor Avner Friedman of Ohio State University in Columbus. These wounds linger, often because they don’t get enough blood flushing them with oxygen and other healing factors. Friedman and his colleagues’ new model is the first to predict the healing behavior of such blood-deprived — or ischemic — wounds, he says.
Mathematician John Dallon of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, says that the new model is the “start of something that could give valuable insight to the wound healing problem in the future.”