Skin Acute Wound Healing: A Comprehensive Review

Figure 2

Neutrophil accumulation in the wound increases during the initial inflammatory phase and starts declining 4 days later until the end of the week [49]. Macrophages increase their numbers during the inflammation phase, reach maximum concentration during the proliferation phase, and decline progressively during the remodeling phase, being the most abundant cell in all phases of wound repair [63, 115]. Lymphocytes start increasing their number after injury and reach a plateau at day 4 that continues to be present until the last phase. The skin resident cell number in dendritic cells, mast cells, Trm, and Treg rm is not known, but the presence in the skin of a large population of T memory cells protects the skin against reinfection [99]; further research will be required to clarify their functions in the wound healing process. The approximated time of each of the wound healing phases is illustrated in the bars at the bottom of the graphic [41].