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Evaluating the application of a shelf-ready reconstitutable liquid skin substitute for treatment of full-thickness wounds in a porcine model

University of British Columbia

Burn injuries affect millions of people worldwide, and can be one of the most difficult types of injuries to manage. Full-thickness burn wounds require immediate coverage, and the primary clinical approaches comprise of skin allografts and autografts. The use of allografts is often temporary due to the antigenicity of allografts. On the other hand, the availability of skin autografts may be limited in large burn injuries. In such cases, skin autografts can be expanded through the use of a skin mesher, creating the split-thickness meshed skin grafts (MSGs). Meshed skin grafts have revolutionized the treatment of large full-thickness burn injuries since the 1960s. However, contractures and poor aesthetic outcomes remain a problem. Skin substitutes can be employed as an alternative wound coverage for large full-thickness wounds, but most commercialized skin substitutes come in a pre-formed sheet, creating complications associated with tissue integration. We previously fabricated an in-situ forming skin substitute, called MeshFill (MF), which can conform to complex shapes and contours of wounds. In this thesis, we hypothesized that the application of MF accelerated wound healing and improved aesthetic outcomes of fishnet-like scarring in MSGs. To test this hypothesis, the following objectives were employed: (1) assessing the wound healing outcomes of MF and (2) a combination of MF and MSGs in full-thickness excisional wounds in a porcine model. The results demonstrated that MF-treated wounds resisted contraction 20 days post-surgery, and the combination of MSGs and MF improved the aesthetic outcomes and reduced contractures examined through blinded evaluations. The results of this pilot study provide a glance at MF’s potential in improving the aesthetic outcomes of full-thickness wounds.

Text

2020-07-31

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/66632

Experimental Medicine

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/