Table 1.

Characteristic differences observed between acute and chronic wounds

Stages in Wound Healing	Acute Skin Wounds	Chronic Skin Wounds
Inflammation2	Robust	Prolonged
Neutrophils2	Recruited immediately and disappear by apoptosis after macrophage recruitment	Neutrophils stay around for a longer period of time than required
Macrophages2	Recruited once neutrophils disappear	Recruitment delayed
Growth factor/cytokine expression
EGF57	Increased	Low to none
PDGF2	Increased	Decreased
TGF-β158	Increased	Increased
VEGF2	Increased	Decreased
bFGF2	Increased	Decreased
GM-CSF34	Increased	Decreased
IFN-γ58	Expressed	Increased
MCP-137	Expressed	Increased
IL-159	Expressed	400-fold increase
IL-660	Increased	Increased
IL-837	Increased	20-fold increase
IL-1032	Expressed	5-fold increase
Formation of granulation tissue2	Yes	No
Fibroblast morphology25	Compact and spindle-shaped	Larger and polygonal
Angiogenesis61	Good	Poor
Re-epithelialization62	Yes	No
MMP activity63	Low	Very high

bFGF, basic fibroblast growth factor; EGF, epidermal growth factor; GM-CSF, granulocyte–macrophage colony-stimulating factor; IFN, interferon; IL, interleukin; MCP-1, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1; MMP, matrix metalloproteinase; PDGF, platelet-derived growth factor; VEGF, vascular endothelial growth factor.