Clinical Application of Autologous Cultured Epithelia for the Treatment of Burns and Disfigurement of Skin Surfaces

In patients who sustain large burns, it is difficult to cover the wounds with the patient’s own skin. Therefore, various materials such as allo-skin, porcine skin, and artificial skin have been used as biological dressings. However, only the patient’s own skin can survive permanently and succeed in covering the wounds. O’Connor et al. (1 ) first succeeded in the grafting of cultured autologous epithelium for the coverage of burn wounds. Autologous cultured epithelium grafting is effective for permanent coverage of the wounds and is widely used as one of the useful methods for covering wide burn wounds. We have been carrying out cultured epithelium grafting since 1985. We have used autologous or allogenic cultured epithelium grafts for the coverage of excised wounds, such as large burns, burn scars, meshed skin scars, tattoo, nevi, donor sites of split thickness skin (STS), and dermatological diseases, in over 400 cases.