Background: Wound closure is the core issue in treating patients with extensive burns. Allogeneic grafts can serve as a suitable temporary substitute in third-degree burns, and the Meek technique has provided encouraging outcomes in recent decades. However, whether allografts and the Meek technique could be used simultaneously so as to leverage the strengths of both has not been extensively examined. Therefore, we aimed to develop absorbable Meek skin graft materials to achieve transplantation of allografts and autografts in a single step.
Methods: Regenerated cellulose was used to make absorbable MEEK materials. The allogeneic skin donor and graft recipient were both pigs. Full-thickness skin excision wounds were made on both sides of the back as experimental and control groups respectively. The experimental group was transplanted with absorbable Meek material, which was then covered with an overlay of allografts. The control group was transplanted with Meek micrografting. Gross appearance and histology of the grafts were compared, as well as the level of four inflammatory factors in tissue samples.
Results: In the early postoperative period, there was little exudation of the wound and the allografts were viable. In the next few days, a thin eschar had formed on the surface of the allografts and the allografts transformed into a crust, and then separated from the wound. The wound healed by day 28. In the control group, the wound exudate was significantly more than that in the experimental group and most wounds had basically healed by day 21. Histology of allografts appeared intact by day 7, but the abundance of epidermal cells decreased, and then almost disappeared. Epithelialization was almost complete by day 28 in the experimental group，which was slightly later than in the control group. There were no significant differences in the level of inflammatory factors.
Conclusions: The use of absorbable Meek skin graft materials allowed for the transplantation of autologous and allogeneic skin grafts in one step and can be expected to have a positive impact on the clinical treatment of extensive burn injuries. However, further improvements are needed to accelerate wound repair.
Keywords: Absorbable materials; Allogeneic skingraft; Burn; MEEK skingraft.
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