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Wound dressings derived from biopolymers offer notable benefits in biocompatibility and bioactivity; however, they often exhibit mechanical strength and durability limitations, essential for optimal clinical outcomes. Natural cross-linking agents, stemming from ethnobotanical knowledge, offer a potential avenue for these dressings. This review discusses the advantages of using natural properties in biopolymer wound dressings, especially concerning traditional knowledge. A comprehensive literature review of scientific publications and ethnobotanical knowledge, such as Ayurveda, to identify natural compounds capable of cross-linking common biopolymers used in wound dressings and agents with known wound-healing properties or biopolymer interaction potential. VOSviewer was applied towards a meta-analysis, uncovering co-occurrence patterns and identifying research gaps within the Scopus and Web of Science datasets. The review highlights several bio-based building blocks, showcasing their effectiveness towards improved mechanical properties, antibacterial activity and biocompatibility via diverse cross-linked mechanisms. It is relevant to emphasize that traditional plants and herbs play an important role in wound healing applications, which can be established by identifying underexplored agents and existing research gaps. Plants, and herbs-derived medicines, and bioactive constituents are selective alternatives to improve biopolymer dressings. This begs further exploration into extraction, purification, safety, and in vivo effectiveness to optimize wound care.
Suhartoyo et al. (Wed,) studied this question.