Originally published October 3 2005
New technique of spray-on skin cells for burn victims will undergo critical evaluation
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
At Queen Victoria Hospital in Sussex, doctors have pioneered a faster method of generating skin tissue for severe burn victims, but debate rages over whether or not these cultured cells function once they are introduced into the patient's body.
A team at Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, West Sussex, has used the technique to treat several patients - including a man with 90% burns.
The technique was first pioneered in Perth, Western Australia, and used on some patients - including victims of the Bali bombing - but has never been fully evaluated.
The East Grinstead team have embraced the technology, and used it to treat several patients with severe and extensive burns.
The current method of treating burns victims is to take samples of skin from unaffected areas, and put them through a meshing machine.
This expands the tissue, creating a string vest pattern of connected patches of skin surrounded by large holes.
Mr Phil Gilbert, a consultant plastic surgeon who specialises in burns, told the BBC News website: "It can cover a much bigger areas and do it much more quickly.
A healthy skin sample is taken from the patient, and split in the laboratory to separate out the surface cells, known as keratinocytes.
Instead of creating a string vest pattern of tissue, this machine cuts the skin sample into tiny little squares.
Mr Gilbert said the technique had been used to treat a man known as John Barratt - not his real name - who suffered 90% burns after being doused with petrol and set alight.
Mr Gilbert said the aim of the new study was to test whether the cultured cells continued to divide and form new skin, or whether new tissue only came from the tiny pieces of skin with which it is combined.
The new study will focus on 24 adults with severe burns, and 50 children under the age of three with scalds.
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