Healing severe burn victims
A pioneer in biological bandages for burn victims, CHUV now hopes to give them antimicrobial properties.
They are prepared using equine collagen and so-called "progenitor" cells from foetal skin (tissue from a single organ donation of 2 centimeter square) from a stem cell bank created in accordance with the Swiss Transplantation Law. These biological bandages developed at CHUV’s Burn Centre are the future of wound dressing. They proved effective on paediatric burns in an initial clinical study published in The Lancet in 2005.
"They can be used at different stages in care for a severe burn patient, such as early coverage of burn sites, and later to cover donor sites autografts, when skin is removed from the patient’s back, head or thighs."
Biological bandages promote faster healing with less scar while preparing the damaged skin for treatment. However, they are not applied if the wound is believed to be infected. And for the time being, these bandages are used only on severe burn victims, which are defined as having a total burn surface area of greater than 20% for adults and 10% for children. New, anti-microbial biological bandages are being developed and have produced promising results. They reflect years of multidisciplinary research for the CHUV team. "The idea is to integrate these bio-bandages into treatment protocols at other hospitals," Lee Ann Laurent-Applegate says.
Source: In Vivo special edition (2019) / Photo: © SAM-CHUV
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