Phases of wound healing.

The phases of wound healing--inflammatory, fibroblastic, and maturation--are continuous, though they overlap and do not always occur in an orderly fashion. Wound healing may be retarded by age, diabetes, smoking, immunosuppression, poor nutrition, cell hypoxia, dehydration, bacteria, and other factors. Bacteria and pus may be so great at the inflammatory phase that the wound remains at that phase. It is important that the nurse recognize when pus is a major factor in an unhealed wound and initiate local care to assist in cleaning the wound bed. It is also important to recognize a clean wound and to initiate appropriate local care that facilitates wound healing. New information about wound healing at the cellular level continues to become available. Epidermal growth factors, platelet-derived growth factors, and the growth hormone somatomedin are being studied, and new methods based on these studies may change local wound care measures. It is essential to understand the phases of wound healing to determine appropriate wound care measures for individual patients.