The use of tissue grafts produced from fetal skin cells quickly allowed to treat children with severe burns, according to a study by Swiss doctors published online Thursday by the British medical journal The Lancet. The eight children treated were candidates for the classic skin autografts of extracting small pieces of healthy skin from a point in the patient's body to graft into the injury so that the coating can regenerate skin. The autograft is applied to deep burns, including third-degree (full thickness of the dermis), which do not allow spontaneous scarring. The team of Prof. Patrick Hohlfeld, University Hospital of Lausanne, is interested in obtaining skin thanks to biotechnologies to improve healing of such burns. With his colleagues have created a bank of fetal skin cells

from a donation of 4 cm2 of fetal skin. The woman, after the termination of a pregnancy of 14 weeks, gave his consent to take a sample from the fetus and the team received approval from an ethics committee. The authors note that several million pieces skin (9x12cm) for therapeutic use can be produced from this unique organ donation. Doctors placed the grafts, small pieces of skin tissues of fetal origin, in the lesions of small Ricans. Skin dressings were added regularly. Children's injuries were closed in just over two weeks without resorting to traditional graft, according to the authors. "We have shown that fetal skin is a substitute for biological skin that can be used as inputs of high quality leather in a short time for Ricans without additional grafting techniques," says Professor Hohlfeld. The fetal skin cells could have great therapeutic potential for burns or other injuries, according to this specialist who stressed the "simplicity of implementation". A patent application (submitted by Patrick Hohlfeld and Lee Ann Applegate) is about this system, which is dedicated Neocutis, a signature created with support from the university hospital in Lausanne.