'Fetal skin is a substitute for biological skin that can provide burned patients with a very high quality of skin in a short time with no additional grafting techniques.'

The new technique will potentially replace skin grafting, the current standard treatment for second and third-degree burns, researchers suggest.

Skin grafting, where a patch of skin is removed from one area of the body and transplanted to another one, is a two-step surgical procedure that additionally requires the use of bio-engineered skin products.

The team, led by Patrick Hohlfeld at the University Hospital of Lausanne, grew a bank of fetal skin cells from a four-square-centimeter donation of fetal skin. A single 4cm donation can potentially provide several million skin constructs (9 x 12cm) suitable for therapeutic use, the authors note.

May Replace Traditional Skin Grafting

Researchers recruited eight children with burns that were candidates for traditional skin grafting. They placed fetal skin-cell constructs on the children’s lesions and bandaged them. They changed their dressings every three to four days for three weeks.

In each instance, the childrens' wounds closed at just over two weeks. The fetal constructs closed their wounds alone, and no child required traditional grafting.

"We have shown that fetal skin is a substitute for biological skin that can provide burned patients with a very high quality of skin in a short time with no additional grafting techniques, notes Professor Hohlfeld.

"In view of the therapeutic effects of this technique along with the simplicity in application, fetal skin cells could have great potential in tissue engineering."