Abstract

Wound healing is a complex cascade and is governed through a number of crucial factors. Conventional wound dressing possesses numerous limitations which hinder wound healing process and may result in serious infections and even mortality. A lot of effort have been put in through researchers to develop a multifaceted dressing which can address these limitations and facilitate accelerated wound healing. Among various newly developed dressings, electrospun hydrogel nanofibers have emerged as a promising class of biomaterials for advanced wound care and tissue engineering applications. These biomimetic fibers closely mimic the architect of the native extracellular matrix, providing an optimal environment that facilitates cellular proliferation and fast generation required for effective wound healing. Electrospinning offers versatility in precisely controlling fiber attributes such as diameter, alignment, and surface morphology and can entrap a variety of drugs with high efficacy. Recently, such dressings have advanced through the incorporation of smart features such as stimuli-responsive components, real-time wound monitoring sensors, and smart closed-loop systems. The electrospun hydrogels are bestowed with extreme porosity, water-retention attribute, biocompatibility, and modified drug release which make them superior over other wound dressings. The review gives an insight of electrospun hydrogel fibers and their application in wound healing and the studies assessing wound healing potential with underlying mechanisms have been critically analysed. Electrospun hydrogel fibers have significant potential to revolutionize wound care through their biomimetic structure, versatile customization, and capacity for integrating therapeutic and sensing capabilities, outlining future research directions toward next-generation wound care products.

Keywords: Hydrogel, smart wound dressings, electrospinning, tissue engineering, nanoscale fibers, biomaterials.