Impaired wound healing is an encumbering public health issue that increases the demand for developing new therapies in order to minimize health costs and enhance treatment efficacy. Available conventional therapies are still unable to maximize their potential in penetrating the skin at the target site and accelerating the healing process. Nanotechnology exhibits an excellent opportunity to enrich currently available medical treatments, enhance standard care and manage wounds. It is a promising approach, able to address issues such as the permeability and bioavailability of drugs with reduced stability or low water solubility. This paper focuses on nanosized-lipid-based drug delivery systems, describing their numerous applications in managing skin wounds. We also highlight the relationship between the physicochemical characteristics of nanosized, lipid-based drug delivery systems and their impact on the wound-healing process. Different types of nanosized-lipid-based drug delivery systems, such as vesicular systems and lipid nanoparticles, demonstrated better applicability and enhanced skin penetration in wound healing therapy compared with conventional treatments. Moreover, an improved chemically and physically stable drug delivery system, with increased drug loading capacity and enhanced bioavailability, has been shown in drugs encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles. Their applications in wound care show potential for overcoming impediments, such as the inadequate bioavailability of active agents with low solubility. Future research in nanosized-lipid-based drug delivery systems will allow the achievement of increased bioavailability and better control of drug release, providing the clinician with more effective therapies for wound care.

Background: squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the second most common type of malignancy worldwide. Skin and mucosa of the head and neck areas are the most frequently affected. An aggressive behavior in SCC is not easily detected, and despite all efforts, mortality in these types of cancer did not show major improvements during recent decades. In this study, we aim to determine the role of histological features available through standard pathology assessment in SCC and their relation with tumor behavior and patients’ survival. Method: in a group of one hundred patients diagnosed with SCC involving the head and neck areas, we assessed the presence of four histological features (tumor/stroma ratio, immune infiltration at the front of invasion, tumor-budding activity, and tumor necrosis), their correlations with tumor type (mucosal or cutaneous), tumor clinicopathological characteristics, and their prognostic potential. Results: the comparison between histological features in cutaneous versus mucosal SCC reveals no significant differences for any of the four parameters assessed. We found significant correlations between tumor/stroma ratio and lymphatic metastasis (p = 0.0275), perineural invasion (p = 0.0006), and clinical staging (p = 0.0116). Immune infiltration at the front of invasion revealed similar correlations with lymph node involvement (p = 0.002), perineural invasion (p = 0.0138), and clinical staging (p = 0.0043). Tumor budding and tumor necrosis correlated with the size of the tumor (p = 0.0077 and p = 0.0004) and the clinical staging (p = 0.0039 and p = 0.0143). In addition, tumor budding was significantly correlated with perineural invasion (p = 0.0454). In mucosal SCC, patients with improved outcome revealed high values for the tumor/stroma ratio (p = 0.0159) and immune infiltration at the front of invasion (p = 0.0274). However, the multivariate analysis did not confirm their independent prognostic roles. Conclusions: extended histological assessments that include features such as tumor/stroma ratio, immune infiltration at the front of invasion, tumor budding, and tumor necrosis can be an easy, accessible method to collect additional information on tumor aggressiveness in skin and mucosa SCC affecting the head and neck areas.

Background: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a common malignancy worldwide, leading to significant disease-associated social and financial burdens. The investigation of underlying mechanisms involved in carcinogenesis and tumor progression in OSCC might provide new therapeutic perspectives with an impact on disease control and patient survival. Our study aims to investigate the interrelation between metabolic processes, expressed through final catabolism products and clinicopathological characteristics in OSCC. Materials and methods: This is a single cancer comparative retrospective study investigating metabolic byproducts, namely serum urea, creatinine and uric acid, detected at the moment of diagnosis in patients with OSCC, in comparison to healthy controls. Clinical and paraclinical data regarding exposure to risk factors, disease staging and pathological characteristics were collected for all patients. Subjects with co-existing systemic or metabolic diseases, or with a history of malignancy, were excluded from the study. Subsequently, the metabolic byproducts revealing significant changes in OSCC patients were considered for a correlation analysis with the disease clinico-pathological characteristics. Results: Blood levels for urea, creatinine and uric acid were determined in a total of 225 subjects: 145 patients diagnosed with OSCC and 80 healthy control subjects admitted to our hospital between 2016 and 2021. The comparative analysis between groups revealed that the serum urea level was significantly lower in OSCC patients (p = 0.0344). Serum creatinine and uric acid did not reveal significant differences between groups. Furthermore, in advanced stages of the disease (stages III and IV), the blood level of urea was significantly lower compared to incipient OSCC (stages I and II) (p = 0.003). We found a negative correlation of serum urea levels with smoking (p = 0.0004) and cervical lymph node metastasis (p = 0.0070), and a positive correlation with aging (p = 0.0000). We found no significant correlation of serum urea with primary tumor size (p = 0.5061) and patient survival (p = 0.2932). Conclusions: Decreased serum urea levels are detected in patients with advanced OSCC, in correlation with lymph node metastasis. The invasive features of tumor cells in OSCC might be promoted in association with dysregulation of protein catabolism processes, facilitating aggressive behavior in OSCC.