New healing for burns
A new skin graft technique helps reduce scarring, according to The Economist. Rather than stretching graft skin over wounds, doctors will soon be able to spray it on.
As in current graft procedures, a spray graft uses “donor skin” from an unaffected area of the patient’s body. However, while current techniques require one-fourth as much donor skin as is needed for the burn, this new method allows donor skin to cover 80 times its own area, meaning the donor skin seldom need be larger than a postage stamp.
In addition, the process reduces the application time from weeks or months to an hour and a half, cuts healing time from weeks to days, and leaves significantly less scarring. Because the skin grows in rather than being stretched, it’s stronger and more resilient once it heals.
The tool for this technique looks like a paint sprayer, only for skin. A Pennsylvania police officer who was one of the first patients to take advantage of the technology described it as looking “like a gun from Star Wars.” He was completely healed after four days. Researchers say the faster procedure will save lives, because current lengthy healing times have proven fatal in a number of cases.