In wound healing, we observed that the contraction of the wound cause significant reduction in the size of the wound. On the basis of this, some researchers have suggested that the agent/drugs which causes faster/significant wound contraction are good wound healing agent.
Which species are you working with? Contraction will be the primary healing mechanism for rodents and other loose skinned animals, though for humans (and species such as pig) much less contraction occurs, with re-epithelialization the main mechanism of closure.
Another question worth asking is are you attempting to simply accelerate closure or will you look at the final appearance of the healed tissue after closure? Excessive contraction is a feature of hypertrophic scars, so manipulating this process might lead to more prominent scar tissue following closure. This would be particularly important if looking to improve healing in humans.
I am concerned with the healing in rodents (rats). I observed that use of some inflammatory drug (having healing potential) increased the inflammatory state at wound site, which in turn cause less contraction within few days of healing. However, the diabetic wounds in control animals don't show efficient inflammatory state and having small wound as compared to inflammatory drug treated wounds. So the wound contraction parameter is not giving good reliable signal towards the wound healing potential of some healing agent possessing inflammatory potential also.
We also observed that although the wound area in diabetic control was lesser on day 19 as compared to day 7 wound in treatment group. But, on histological examination of the wounds, it was observed that even the condition of wound of diabetic control group on day 19 was much poor as compared to day 7 wound of treatment group (having more wound area than day 19 wound of diabetic control).
So, this is revealing that wound contraction is not much reliable parameter in wound healing.
Post operative wound contraction would be directly proportional to preoperative inflammation at the site.. More th inflammation ,more would be wound contraction.... U can consider histo-morphometric analyses of the wound keeping in mind distance between the wound margin, extent of inflammatory cellular infiltrates, and fibroblasts.
wound contraction in humans is markedly less important than in loose skinned animals,the wounds in neck ,back,hands etc in humans if skin is not replaced timely,it heals with wound contraction albeit with severe deformities,I also would like to point out that clinically it is not a linear equation like more inflammation = more contraction,especially in areas where there is no extra skin or loose skin like the legs where even 2 cm skin loss cannot close with wound contraction
I would give you the answer of a clinician:
-1 : negative pressure therapy not only heals by the aspiration of the secretions but also by the succion effect
-2: the use of polystyren microspheres (POLYHEAL*) may restore stalled granulation process and reduce the wound size I do not know if it has ( or not) anything to do with wound contraction but it could be worth checking
-3 : anyway we have to distinguish between a chronic and acute wound
Best regards to all
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