Wound healing: from embryos to adults and back again.

摘要

In The Lancet today, Mark Ferguson and colleagues1 describe the initial clinical investigation of the anti-scarring cytokine, transforming growth factor beta3 (TGFbeta3), in its commercial form (avotermin), for the regeneration of healing wounds. Despite decades of investigation, the development of fibrosis in skin and other parts of the human body remains incompletely understood, whereas the morbidity of hypertrophic scarring and keloids, after traumatic and thermal injury, remains very high (figure). Other immunological fibrotic disorders, including systemic sclerosis and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, cause not only morbidity but also mortality, with survival after diagnosis averaging 2-9 years.