Amazing New Treatment for Burns: Notes from a San Francisco Bay Area Dermatologist

As highlighted in Dermatology Times, MIT’s Technology Review (11/5, Gravitz) reports, “A relatively new technology has the potential to heal burns in a way that’s much less invasive than skin grafts.” By utilizing “a small skin biopsy and a ready-made kit, surgeons can create a suspension of the skin’s basal cells (or essentially skin stem cells)…and spray the solution directly onto the burn with results comparable to those from skin grafts.” The process is “approved for use in some countries,” and “has garnered interest from the United States Army, whose Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine is funding a trial, slated to begin before the end of this year, of more than 100 patients.” The treatment “is intended to treat severe second-degree burns, in which the top two layers of skin are damaged but the subcutaneous tissue is left intact. Third-degree burns…still require a skin graft.”

To actually have this “sprayed-on skin” adhere and patch burnt areas is an exciting technology and a much less invasive way to treat burns without adding insult to injury like with skin grafts.  I look forward to learning more about the success of the trial study.

Tags: bay area dermatologist, burn, san francisco bay area dermatologist, skin, skin graft

This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Skin Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.