A young man with seventy percent of his body burned successfully received in Spain the first transplant in the world of human skin made from their own cells, a pioneering patent that combines tissue engineering and nanostructures to give more flexibility and allow treat the skin.
This woman, 29, who last April suffered burns all over his body, became the first recipient of this innovative transplant, avoiding rejections, it reduces the chances of infection and increases the patient's recovery.
It also is the first international transplantation using a skin model made from the patient's cells and agarose, a chemical derived from seaweed which enhances elasticity of artificial skin, increases its thickness to manipulate and meets European standards for drug manufacturing.
Professionals from hospitals in Granada and Seville, southern Spain, and the University of Granada enabled this operation, which enhances other types of artificial skin that did not conform to European standards and which also improve the clinical outcomes of patient with a "poor prognosis" without this technique.
Team officials eighty researchers and health that enabled the transplant stressed that one of the characteristics of this new autologous human skin consists of its deformation properties that allow both surgical management and adapt to the needs of the patient.
It is also the first transplant in the world of its kind in major burns, since there are other techniques used in the United States with artificial skin, but are suited to small areas burned and are not manufactured with the cells of the patient, generating rejects and expands the possibilities of infection.
In transplantation, the team used two sheets of skin of the youngest of four square centimeters each to manufacture 5,900 centimeters in two interventions, implanted in your body.
Dr. Miguel Alaminos stressed that this transplant represents a milestone after a decade of work in tissue engineering to create this biomaterial with a skin-like structure, thanks to which the patient can receive the medical discharge within about one month to present an evolution favorable.
The new patent allows to generate skin more resistant to handling and postural changes, with more elasticity and prevents infection and fluid loss.
So far, major burns received skin grafts from deceased donations, temporary transplants with increased risks of both rejection and infection, so that this new technique facilitates recovery and reduces mortality rates.
Currently, skin is made for a second patient with more than seventy percent of his burned body surface, which will be involved in the coming weeks.