Originally published August 26 2005
Fetal skin cells works miracles in burn treatment
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Bioengineered fetal skin cells are the new generation in burn treatment for children.
In a procedure that could revolutionize burn treatment, doctors have used fetal skin cells to successfully heal young children with severe scalding injuries, avoiding the need to remove a patch of their own skin for a graft.
The skin cells, taken from an aborted fetus and grown in the lab into a sheet-like covering, acted as a "biological Band-Aid," said lead researcher Dr. Patrick Hohlfeld, a professor of gynecology and obstetrics at the University Hospital of Lausanne in Switzerland.
"We observed spontaneous healing of the wound, which you would never observe in normal conditions (with a traditional graft)," he said from Lausanne.
The doctors used the bioengineered skin on eight children aged 14 months to nine years old, who had deep second- and third-degree burns to their hands, feet, legs or buttocks.
The burns healed over in an average of two weeks; with traditional skin grafting, healing can take up to three months and require more than one operation, the researchers report in Thursday's on-line edition of the Lancet.
Redressing the burns --- an often excruciating process with traditional grafting --- was much easier for kids to endure, Dr. Hohlfeld said.
"Not only did they heal, but it had a very good impact on the pain they were experiencing --- you need several dressing changes and usually you have to put them to sleep to do that --- and with this technique most of them didn't need it.
"So you avoid a lot of things.
The Swiss researchers knew that fetuses heal scarlessly when small surgical procedures are performed on them in the womb, so they decided to see whether that would hold true if fetal skin were transplanted onto patients' wounds.
Nobody would start a pregnancy for that.
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