Modern Treatment For Skin Grafts

The method is much cheaper than alike treatment, charitable it the possible to be used at length in third-world countries.

Burns patients usually undergo multiple skin grafts that leave spiteful scars and cause pain. A information of new treatments have sprung up in the past decade, counting the spray-on skin used on the Bali bombing patients.

However, cost and unreliable victory rates denote skin grafts stay the main option for many patients. Developer of the new method, Royal Adelaide Hospital burns surgeon Dr John Greenwood, said the seal was cheaper than existing devices, which can cost about $250,000.

"If we can get the cost low enough you can use it wherever and that's what I want to leave at the back, a legacy of treating burns patients in poor nations," he said. The new two-stage method involves a ecological artificial seal being inserted into the injury while new skin is grown in a laboratory.

Different customary skin grafts which need large strips of skin to be in use from uninjured areas of the body and placed over the wound, Dr Greenwood's technique requires only a 10cm four-sided figure sample. The cells are grown in the lab over about three weeks to make a compound skin.

In the meantime, the biodegradable close lying inside the wound helps protect against infection and ensures the area leftovers open awaiting the compound skin can be laid on top.Dr Greenwood is currently trialing the safety of the seal in pigs and hopes to start clinical trials in burns patients soon. Existing seals are less resistant to infection and wound contraction.

Farmer David Mickan, who suffer third-degree burns to 55 per cent of his body in 2002, said removing the need for skin grafts would be welcome."The skin grafts were probably one of the most painful things that anyone could put up with," said the 64-year-old, who was engulfed by flames during a burn-off on his South Australian farm.

"My grafted skin is till tight and itchy. It's not painful but is uncomfortable."This new skin Dr Greenwood is working on will be more like your old skin and able to sweat and breathe."

Wound management expert Professor Stephen Prowse said there was huge potential for Dr Greenwood's technique to treat the hundreds of thousands of people with major open wounds such as leg ulcers."The big area in wound treatment is the action of multifaceted wounds or chronic ulcers that come from complications with diabetes and vascular problems," said Professor Prowse.