Three-dimensional bioprinted platforms for disease management: cancer and chronic wounds

Abstract

Abstract Cancer and chronic wounds share key features, namely chronic inflammation, impaired angiogenesis, hypoxia, extracellular matrix (ECM) remodelling, fibroblast activation, immune dysregulation and microbiome imbalance. Common, three-dimensional (3D) bioinks, platforms and models can thus be used to screen drugs that target both wound healing and tumour growth, study cancer-associated fibroblast–myofibroblast transitions between healing and tumorigenic contexts and investigate immune evasion mechanisms shared between chronic wounds and tumours. Three-dimensional bioprinted models offer a personalized, high-fidelity and predictive platform to understand disease mechanisms, test therapeutics and guide decision-making. In the clinical setting, these models can allow drug selection, treatment design, resistance monitoring and simulate patient scenarios. This review discusses materials platforms and printing techniques that can exploit the common traits between cancer and chronic wounds, leading to efficient disease management through personalized medicine and treatment design. This review uniquely highlights a unified 3D bioprinting framework for simultaneously modelling cancer and chronic wounds, emphasizing shared mechanisms and therapeutic targets. By integrating these traditionally separate disease contexts, it provides a novel perspective that can guide both research and clinical applications. Given its demonstrated potential to replicate human physiology and yield reproducible results, it can ease future regulatory approval for drug development and lower treatment costs.