Wound healing is an intricate process that involves the timely combination of

strongly coupled biological, chemical and mechanical processes. These very dif-

ferent cues act through three overlapping phases: inammation, proliferation

and remodelling (Singer and Clark, 1999). However, the imbalanced interac-

tion of chemical and/or mechanical signals and cells may lead to unsuccessful

healing and loss of organ functionality. For instance, the co-operative action of

insu_cient oxygen supply and poor response of immune cells lead to chronic

wounds in the limbs of diabetic patients (Blakytny and Jude, 2006).

In this work, we analyse the competitive interaction of bacteria and leuko-

cytes during the inammation phase. A _rst simpli_ed model allows us to de-

marcate conditions leading to wound infection. Subsequently, this basic model

is extended to include e_ects of bacteria bi-products on _broblast migration

and wound closure. The release of white blood cells into the wound is deter-

mined, among other factors, by the vascular network and the capillary sti_ness.

Thus, the proposed model couples the inammatory and proliferative phases,

and allows to investigate the role of inammatory disorders on the progress of

wound contraction and angiogenesis (Vermolen and Javierre (2010), Valero et

al. (2013)). The model is formulated in terms of a coupled set of nonlinear

partial di_erential equations, which are solved in a _nite-element framework.

References

A.J. Singer and R.A. Clark, Cutaneous wound healing. New England Journal

of Medicine, Vol. 341, pp. 738-746, 1999.

R. Blakytny and E. Jude, The molecular biology of chronic wounds and delayed

healing in diabetes. Diabetic Medicine, Vol. 23, pp. 594-608, 2006.

F.J. Vermolen and E. Javierre, Computer simulations from a _nite-element

model for wound contraction and closure. Journal of Tissue Viability, Vol.

19, pp. 43-53, 2010.

C. Valero, E. Javierre, J.M. Garca-Aznar, M.J. Gmez-Benito, Numerical mod-

elling of the angiogenesis process in wound contraction. Biomechanics and Mod-

eling in Mechanobiology, Vol. 12, pp. 349-360, 2013.

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