Title:Naturally Occurring Wound Healing Agents: An Evidence-Based Review
Volume: 23
Issue: 29
Author(s): E. G. Karapanagioti and A. N. Assimopoulou
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Cicatrization, Diabetes, Drug discovery, Natural products, Plants, Ulcers, Wounds, Wound healing
mechanism.
Abstract: Nature constitutes a pool of medicines for thousands of years.
Nowadays, trust in nature is increasingly growing, as many effective medicines
are naturally derived. Over the last decades, the potential of plants as wound
healing agents is being investigated. Wounds and ulcers affect the patients’ life
quality and often lead to amputations. Approximately 43,000,000 patients suffer
from diabetic foot ulcers worldwide. Annually, $25 billion are expended for the
treatment of chronic wounds, with the number growing due to aging population
and increased incidents of diabetes and obesity. Therefore a timely, orderly and
effective wound management and treatment is crucial.
This paper aims to systematically review natural products, mainly plants, with
scientifically well documented wound healing activity, focusing on articles based
on animal and clinical studies performed worldwide and approved medicinal
products. Moreover, a brief description of the wound healing mechanism is
presented, to provide a better understanding. Although a plethora of natural
products are in vitro and in vivo evaluated for wound healing activity, only a few
go through clinical trials and even fewer launch the market as approved
medicines. Most of them rely on traditional medicine, indicating that
ethnopharmacology is a successful strategy for drug development. Since only 6%
of plants have been systematically investigated pharmacologically, more
intensified efforts and emerging advancements are needed to exploit the potentials
of nature for the development of novel medicines. This paper aims to provide a
reliable database and matrix for thorough further investigation towards the
discovery of wound healing agents.
