THE MEASUREMENT OF OPEN WOUNDS - ORDER OUT OF CHAOS

Research into the cellular and biochemical mechanisms of wound healing has progressed rapidly in recent years, but assessment of wound heali ng has not kept pace with the basic sciences. As new and modem techniq ues for wound analysis, stereophotogrammetry, ultrasound and fractal a nalysis have been developed and applied. The latter implies specific c onditions: self-similarity on several levels of structural organizatio n and maintenance of complexity. However, fractal analysis of open wou nds is still in its infancy and needs further development in demonstra ting the fractal nature of wounds, methods of measuring the fractal di mensions of wounds and considering the changes in dimensions as a woun d heals.