Management of chronic wounds with amniotic membrane: clarification of its analgesic mechanisms of action

Chronic wounds pose a serious health and socioeconomic challenge in the Czech Republic and worldwide. Patients with chronic wounds face significant health risks and limited social participation, both of which greatly reduce their quality of life. Healing such wounds is also costly and consumes a large portion of healthcare resources. The primary goals of modern care are to improve treatment efficiency and enhance patients' quality of life. Proper dressing materials are essential for effective wound management. There is a wide range of products, including biologically active dressings that target the wound at the molecular and cellular levels. These include the human amniotic membrane, which was traditionally used only for ocular surface reconstruction and healing wounds. This dissertation aims to comprehensively evaluate new findings regarding the use of the amniotic membrane for treating chronic wounds, not only to accelerate healing but also to provide pain relief, and to explore its molecular mechanism of action. In our comparative study, we evaluated the effects of amniotic membrane therapy versus standard therapy on 42 patients with 54 chronic wounds of various causes, averaging 20 cm2 in size. If a wound showed less than 20% healing over six weeks with standard dressings, cryopreserved...