Autoimmune diseases may underlie wounds that don’t heal

Wounds that are slow to heal or do not at all may have an underlying autoimmune disease, according to a new study the finding represents an difficult link that could lead to important new insights in wound healing, say researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center.

The study was sparked by the keen watching of Georgetown rheumatologist Victoria Shanmugam, M.D., who began noticing something rather curious in her patients with autoimmune diseases any open wound they had was very slow to heal.their recovery was even more protracted than in patients through wounds who have diabetes, a disease that is notoriously damaging to blood vessels and to normal skin repair.

So Shanmugam and her colleagues conducted a chart review of people who sought care at a high-volume wound clinic at Georgetown University Hospital to determine the prevalence of autoimmune diseases the study included patients with open wounds regularly leg ulcers who were treated through a three-month period in 2009 of the 340 patients, 49 percent had diabetes, which she says is a typical rate.

Healing of the skin

Wound healing begins with hemostasis inside minutes after the injury, platelets swarm to collect around the injury site to outline a fibrin clot this stems the bleeding naturally, this is just a temporary determine the area becomes inflamed as the body’s natural defenses like phagocytes and lymphocytes come into play they kill bacteria that effort to get in, and remove dead cells and debris factors are released from cells around the area to commence the process of proliferation.

Here, new blood vessels are formed and collagen hankie laid down this all forms a mass called granulation tissue your epidermis cells replicate and “crawl” on peak of this bed, providing new cover the wound then contracts from beginning to end myofibroblasts, which pull the wound edges and make it smaller.

It doesn’t stop there the wound continue to be remodeled and matured a few cuts heal completely and there is very little scarring to be seen others leave a scar from side to side this healing process a scar regularly takes 12 to 18 months to mature.