Advanced Wound Care with Biopolymers

Abstract

Recent advancement of the scientific research in the area of wound management demonstrated huge possibilities of nature derived materials as a potential source in wound repairing and tissue engineering. Wound healing is one of the difficult challenges in healthcare area due to the complexity of the natural healing process which often delays due to several microbial infections. An ideal wound dressing should maintain the moisture as well as able to remove excess fluid from the wound bed, permits gaseous exchange and easily to be removed without trauma after application. Bio polymers are naturally occurring molecules derived from different source namely plant, microbes, aquatic animals. They fits ideally to the main criteria of wound dressing that is non-toxic and non-irritant. Various type of wound dressings including hydrogels, hydro-colloids, films, foams, sponges, and electro-spun nanofibres have been formulated and received an increased interest from researchers to incorporate biopolymers i.e. Alginate, Chitosan, Cellulose, Gelatin, Collagen or combination of them into these dressings due to their structural advantage of bio-mimicking and pro-healing intrinsic properties. Biomaterials for wound healing can be classified in different ways, depending on their source, chemical nature, and type of dressings. This review article highlights the versatile use of biopolymers along with the current research in the field of wound care.