Baptista-Silva, S.Alves, P.Guimarães, I.Borges, S.Tavaria, F.Granja, P.Pintado, M.Oliveira, A. L.2022-05-092023-01-01202297830307026569783030702663http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/37471Wound management challenges everyday thousands of health professionals, mainly due to the constant monitoring and difficulties in deciding the correct treatment options. When considering chronic wounds, selecting the ideal dressing defies clinical knowledge, when facing the large amount of different materials, its distinctive properties and the uniqueness of each patient needs. This chapter presents an overview on the challenges and complexity of a chronic wound, exploring the event of awound infection and discussing the large range of polymer-based composite materials and products in use for each specific wound condition, taking into account the key decision aspects defined by the clinicians. Different tissue engineering strategies are also herein addressed with varied reported clinical success, ranging from non-cellularized to considerably sophisticated cellularized products, reproducing the compositional complexity of both dermis and epidermis. Recent advances in smart dressings and sensors are also brought to discussion as sensing the wound can give us new insights about the series of complex biochemical events related to the healing and regeneration process, while contributing for a better wound assessment.engPolymersComposite materialsWound managementWound dressingsbook part10.1007/978-3-030-70266-3_14