Chronic Wounds or Hard to Heal Ulcers: Updating Epidemiology, Physiopathology, and Therapies

Dear Colleagues,

Currently, there is an intense debate about the terminology, etiology, epidemiology, and current strategies for the prevention and management of so-called chronic wounds. Researchers have usually used, indistinctly, the terms “chronic wound”, “skin ulcer”, “hard-to-heal wound or ulcer”, etc. Specifically, for certain types of wounds, the terminology is changing due to new insights into the physiopathology and etiology, leading to new theoretical models of wound development, for instance, the trend from decubitus or bed sores to pressure ulcers and, now, to pressure injuries. The case is similar for leg or lower extremity wounds, where different etiologies could be present.

Nevertheless, such types of lesions are a remarkable public health problem due to the high numbers of people suffering from them, leading to a high impact on the direct cost burden and indirect indicators such as the quality of life of people suffering from wounds, and their families. On the other hand, the current prevention and treatment strategies are still limited and often less effective, or have little reported evidence to back them up.

This highlights the urgent need for new approaches and new research with better quality, requiring a further understanding of the whole process, from the etiology to wound healing.

This Special Issue of the Journal of Clinical Medicine on Chronic or Hard-to-Heal Wounds is intended to present cutting-edge original research and systematic, integrative, or scoping reviews on the epidemiology, risk factors, and physiopathology of those wounds; those on the existing strategies and emerging advanced clinical approaches for prevention and treatment management are also welcome.

Prof. Dr. José Verdú-Soriano
Guest Editor

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• epidemiology
• physiopathology
• advanced therapies
• hard-to-heal wounds
• chronic wounds
• skin ulcers
• new theoretical models
• etiology research
• risk factors
• prevention strategies

• Chronic Wounds or Hard to Heal Ulcers: Updating Epidemiology, Physiopathology, and Therapies-Part II in Journal of Clinical Medicine (2 articles)