The significance of the effects of non-healing wounds has been the topic of many research papers and lectures during the last 25 years. Efforts have been made to understand the effects of long-standing venous hypertension, diabetes, the prevalence of wounds in such conditions with as well as the difficulties faced in managing such wounds with some success. Successful efforts to define standard care regimes have also been made. However, attempts to introduce innovative therapy have been much less successful. Is this merely because we have not understood the intricacies of the problem? And would system based modelling be an untried technique?
Venous ulcers are the majority of lower extremity wounds, and a clinical challenge. A previously developed model of venous ulcers permits some understanding of why compression bandaging is successful but fails to accommodate complications such as exudate and infection. Could this experimental model be improved by system based modelling?
Chronic wounds need to be modelled however the needs for such models should be examined in order that the outcome permits advances in our thinking as well in clinical management.