Emerging role of iron oxide nanoparticles in wound healing

Iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) have emerged as multifunctional agents for advanced wound care with its antibacterial, antioxidant, and drug delivery capabilities, along with unique magnetic and photothermal properties. This review provides a comprehensive evaluation of the therapeutic potential, design strategies, and translational relevance of IONPs-based smart wound dressings, emphasizing recent advancements (scaffolds, hydrogels, and nanocomposites) in stimuli-responsive systems such as pH, ROS, glucose, and magnetically triggered platforms, and also highlights their roles in accelerating hemostasis, reducing microbial infection, promoting cellular proliferation, and modulating inflammatory responses. This paper highlights industrial innovation and intellectual property trends, covering device integrated dressings, composition claims, scalable manufacturing methods, and theragnostic integration. Despite promising in vitro and preclinical evidence, major challenges, including biocompatibility issues, lack of clinical validation, scalability barriers, complexity of the multifaceted physiological process in wound healing poses a significant clinical challenge, and regulatory uncertainty, have hindered widespread clinical adoption. However, green synthesis approaches, 3D bioprinting, and biodegradable nanocomposites may ensure safety, affordability, and sustainability. These findings, insights translational challenges and provides a roadmap for accelerating the clinical uses of IONPs enabled smart wound dressings for chronic, infected, and diabetic wounds. IONPs into wound healing strategies present a promising frontier in regenerative medicine. Their ability to enhance cellular activity, targeted therapy through magnetic guidance, and synergize with biomaterials for scaffold-based healing offers solutions to many limitations of conventional therapies.