BACKGROUND The influence of skin substitutes upon angiogenesis during wound healing is unclear. OBJECTIVES To compare the angiogenic response in acute cutaneous human wounds treated with autogenic, allogenic and xenogenic skin substitutes to those left to heal by secondary intention. METHODS On day 0, four 5mm full-thickness punch biopsies were harvested from fifty healthy volunteers (sites...

Advances in treatment of skin wounds depend on demonstration of reduced morbidity or mortality either during or after hospitalization. Tissue engineering of skin grafts from cultured cells and biopolymers permits greater amounts of grafts from less donor tissue than conventional procedures. Autologous keratinocytes and fibroblasts isolated from epidermis and dermis of skin may be combined with ...

Although gene therapy shows great promises for the treatment of Recessive Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa (RDEB), a rare genodermatosis (3/million births) in which minor mechanical stress to skin results blisters and scarring leading severe pain, permanent restoration normal type VII collagen (C7) by genetically modified cells remains challenge. Here, we investigate potential combined with aut...

BACKGROUND Tissue engineering is an emerging field. Novel bioengineered skin substitutes and genetically derived growth factors offer innovative approaches to reduce the burden of diabetic foot and venous leg ulcers for both patients and health care systems. However, they frequently are very costly. Based on a systematic review of the literature, this study assesses the cost-effectiveness of th...

Collagen-based implants have been described as vehicles for transplantation of cultured skin cells for treatment of burn wounds. To optimize vascularization and repair of connective tissue, collagen solubility and glutaraldehyde crosslinking were evaluated. Cultured skin substitutes consisted of human keratinocytes and fibroblasts attached to collagen-glycosaminoglycan substrates that were prep...

Dermal substitutes offer alternative approaches for wounds of all thicknesses where sufficient donation sites are not available for self-grafts. Several dermal substitutes are described in literature. This study included 20 patients treated with a dermal induction template after the removal of malignant skin cancers situated in various parts of the body. The participants were especially aged pa...

Thermal injuries may cause significant damage to large areas of the skin. Extensive and deep burn wounds require specialistic therapy. The optimal method in the strategy of treating extensive, full thickness burns (III°) is the use of autologous free skin grafts of intermediate thickness (1-4). The main limitation of this method is the inadequate amount of healthy, undamaged skin (donor site), ...