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Effect Of Advanced Age On The Innate Immune Response To Cutaneous Wound Infection, Aleah Lin Brubaker

Dissertations

An estimated 25 billion in US health care expenditure is spent on care of chronic, non-healing wounds. The failure to effectively heal wounds is often compounded by co-morbidities, such as diabetes or obesity. Another major patient population afflicted with chronic wounds are the elderly. Advanced age is associated with a decline in immunologic function that contributes to a poor response to vaccination, infection and tissue injury resulting in prolonged hospital stays and age-related morbidity and mortality. Specifically, clinical observations and laboratory studies have suggested an age-related decline in cutaneous wound healing, marked by protracted wound closure, wound dehiscence and chronic …