The lactate conundrum in wound healing: clinical and experimental findings indicate the requirement for a rapid point-of-care diagnostic.

The increasing prevalence of chronic wounds has significant financial implications for nations with advanced healthcare provision. Although the diseases that predispose to hard-to-heal wounds are recognized, their etiology is less well understood, partly because practitioners in wound management lack specialized diagnostic support. Prognostic indicators for healing may be inherent to wound biochemistry but remain invisible under routine clinical investigation; lactate is an example of this.