Autologous fibroblast culture in the repair of aging skin.

Background: Human cell cultures are being developed to replace various body tissues.

Objective: To assess the safety and efficacy of dermal regeneration with the injection of young autologous fibroblasts obtained from culture containing serum from patients themselves.

Materials And Methods: Dermal tissue from the groin of five patients was cultivated in M199 medium supplemented with 10% human serum. Four population doublings were obtained. The fibroblasts were injected intradermally into forehead wrinkles and periorbital and paranasal areas.

Result: At the fourth population doubling, a mean of 3.85 × 10(6) cells/mL was obtained; viability was 98%. Sixty days after completing treatment, with four injections given at 15-day intervals, periorbital tonicity had improved significantly, although the quantity of fibroblasts used resulted in little improvement to surface lines and no improvement at all in deeper wrinkles. After 6 months, no further changes were found beyond the initial results obtained.

Conclusion: Injection of skin fibroblasts cultivated in medium supplemented with human serum is a viable technique and provokes no side effects. Four injections given at 15-day intervals containing a total of 6.4 × 10(6) fibroblasts/mL resulted in significant improvement in periorbital skin flaccidity. Further studies should be conducted with larger sample sizes.