Tackling chronic wound healing using nanomaterials: advancements, challenges, and future perspectives

Chronic wounds are known as one of the biggest health challenges, especially in the case of diabetes patients, which annually engages millions of patients, and its management imposes an exorbitant economic cost on societies worldwide. Therefore, there is an unmet need to find novel therapeutic methods with lower costs and higher efficiency. In recent years, a wide range of nanomaterials (NMs) has been utilized and shown promising results in treating different types of chronic wounds via playing a vital role as carriers for therapeutic agents or directly act as the therapeutic compound. NMs could affect different phases of the healing process, from hemostasis to remodeling, via influencing various intracellular factors. Towards this, the current review aims to provide the most recent research progress and prospect on the application of different NMs in chronic wound healing, particularly focusing on their effects on intracellular factors. The chronic wounds and intracellular pathways involved in this process are elaborated, and several NMs-based therapeutic agents used for chronic wound healing are described. The potential pitfalls and challenges of utilizing NMs in chronic wound healing are covered, and future perspectives toward more successful translational applications are presented.