Wound Healing Research Paper

The third phase of wound healing is granulation phase, which takes place to repair the damaged cells by regenerating new cells. This phase consists of different subphases, which can last up to 4 weeks in the clean and uncontaminated wound. These sub phases do not happen in discrete time frames but constitute an overall and ongoing process. The sub phases are "fibroplasia, matrix deposition, angiogenesis and re-epithelialization" (Cho & Lo, 1998).
The first sub phase of granulation process is fibroplasia. In days 5-7, fibroblasts have migrated into the wound, laying down new collagen of the subtypes I and III. In normal wound healing, early type III collagen predominates but is later replaced by type I collagen. Tropocollagen, which is the precursor of all collagen types, is then transformed within the cell's rough endoplasmic
Remodeling process takes place after the third week, whereby the wound is altered constantly. Constant alteration of wound can last for years after the initial injury occurred. In remodeling, collagen is degraded and deposited in an equilibrium-producing fashion, resulting in no change in the amount of collagen deposited in the wound. In normal wound healing, the collagen deposition reaches a peak by the third week after the wound is created. Then, contraction of the wound takes place following collagen deposition. Wound contraction is an ongoing process resulting in part from the proliferation of the specialized fibroblasts termed myofibroblasts, which resemble contractile smooth muscle cells (Deodhar & Rana, 1997, para 3). Wound contraction occurs to a greater extent with secondary healing than with primary healing, whereby it leaves a scar in socondary healing. By the 12th week, maximal tensile strength of the wound is achieved although the ultimate resultant scar has only 80% of the tensile strength of the original skin that it has replaced (Brunner & Suddarth, 2008, p.