Silver Nanoparticles and Its Mechanistic Insight for Chronic Wound Healing: Review on Recent Progress

Wounds are structural and functional disruptions of skin that occur because of trauma, surgery, acute illness, or chronic disease conditions. Chronic wounds are caused by a breakdown in the finely coordinated cascade of events that occurs during healing. Wound healing is a long process that split into at least three continuous and overlapping processes: an inflammatory response, a proliferative phase, and finally the tissue remodeling. Therefore, these processes are extensively studied to develop novel therapeutics in order to achieve maximum recovery with minimum scarring. Several growth hormones and cytokines secreted at the site of lesions tightly regulates the healing processes. The traditional approach for wound management has been represented by topical treatments. Metal nanoparticles (e.g., silver, gold and zinc) are increasingly being employed in dermatology due to their favorable effects on healing, as well as in treating and preventing secondary bacterial infections. In the current review, a brief introduction on traditional would healing approach is provided, followed by focus on the potential of wound dressing therapeutic techniques functionalized with Ag-NPs.