Achieving self-sufficiency in skin allograft: A Singapore experience.

Aim: This paper describes how Singapore achieved skin allograft self-sufficiency in 2017 by adopting 5 key strategies in 2012.

Background: Singapore General Hospital (SGH) established its own allograft recovery programme in 1998 but was still dependent on overseas allograft procurement.

Key Strategies: RESULTS: The allograft recovery programme expanded from 4 to all 20 institutions.

From skin allograft coverage to allograft-micrograft sandwich method: A retrospective review of severe burn patients who received conjunctive application of cultured epithelial autografts.

A 12-year retrospective review of severe burn patients who received cultured epithelial autografts (CEA) at the Singapore General Hospital Burns Centre from January 2005 to December 2016 was carried out. During this period, two different surgical modalities were employed to manage these burn injuries. In the earlier period, following early excision of the burn wounds, exposed surfaces were covered with a combination of split thickness skin autografts (STSG) and allografts.

Skin tissue engineering advances in severe burns: review and therapeutic applications.

Current advances in basic stem cell research and tissue engineering augur well for the development of improved cultured skin tissue substitutes: a class of products that is still fraught with limitations for clinical use. Although the ability to grow autologous keratinocytes in-vitro from a small skin biopsy into sheets of stratified epithelium (within 3 to 4 weeks) helped alleviate the problem of insufficient donor site for extensive burn, many burn units still have to grapple with insufficient skin allografts which are used as intermediate wound coverage after burn excision. Alternatives offered by tissue-engineered skin dermal replacements to meet emergency demand have been used fairly successfully.