Wound Healing and Ulcers of the Skin

The healing of wounds is the very basic art of medicine which every physician should be able to master. Physicians and medical personnel seem often overwhelmed by the plethora of innovative topical preparations, dressing materials and advanced debridement techniques. Even specialists such as dermatologists and plastic surgeons may encounter difficulties in choosing the most appropriate treatment in the field of wound healing. Wound Healing and Ulcers of the Skin is a clinical guidebook which instructs the reader how to diagnose and treat wounds and cutaneous ulcers. This excellent and well-structured book introduces an algorithmic approach for the identification of ulcer etiology, together with step-by-step flow charts for therapy. It is especially valuable since it is not only written by experts, but the content of each of the chapters has also been peer-reviewed. This extraordinary work offers helpful support to all physicians who treat acute and chronic cutaneous wounds such as dermatologists, general practitioners and family physicians, plastic and general surgeons, as well as orthopedic and vascular surgeons. Further, it will also be of assistance for physicians from other branches, such as diabetologists, internists, and geriatricians, who often encounter the need to treat chronic wounds. TOC:Basic Definitions and General Overview.- Natural Course of Wound Repair vs. Impaired Healing in Chronic Cutaneous Ulcers.- Milestones in the History of Wound Healing.- Etiology and Mechanisms of Cutaneous Ulcer Formation.- Determining Etiology.- Ulcer Measurement and Patient Assessment.- Dressing Materials.- Debridement.- Antibiotics, Antiseptics and Cutaneous Ulcers.- Topical Antibacterial Agents.- Skin Grafting.- Skin Substitutes and Tissue-Engineered Skin Equivalents.- Human Skin Equivalents: When and How to Use?- Growth Factors.- Drugs, Wound Healing and Cutaneous Ulcers.- Alternative Topical Preparations.- Additional Preparations.- Nutrition and Cutaneous Ulcers.- Therapeutic Approach to Cutaneous Ulcers According to Appearance.- Appendix: Guidelines for Patients and Medical Staff.