Tag: burns

Categories : Dermatology Injury & TraumaTags : Leave a comment

“Skin in a Syringe” a Step Towards a New Way to Heal Burns

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Researchers in fields such as regenerative medicine and materials science have collaborated to develop a gel containing living cells that can be 3D-printed into a transplant. Photographer: Magnus Johansson

Finding a way to replicate the skin’s complicated dermis layer has long been a goal of healing burn wounds, as it would greatly reduce scarring and restore functionality. Researchers at Linköping University have developed a gel containing living cells that can be 3D-printed onto a transplant, which then sticks to the wound and creates a scaffold for the dermis to grow.

Large burns are often treated by transplanting a thin layer of the top part of the skin, the epidermis, which is basically composed of a single cell type. Transplanting only this part of the skin leads to severe scarring.

“Skin in a syringe”

Beneath the epidermis is the dermis, which has the blood vessels, nerves, hair follicles and other structures necessary for skin function and elasticity. However, transplanting also the dermis is rarely an option, as the procedure leaves a wound as large as the wound to be healed. The trick is to create new skin that does not become scar tissue but a functioning dermis.

“The dermis is so complicated that we can’t grow it in a lab. We don’t even know what all its components are. That’s why we, and many others, think that we could possibly transplant the building blocks and then let the body make the dermis itself,” says Johan Junker, researcher at the Swedish Center for Disaster Medicine and Traumatology and docent in plastic surgery at Linköping University, who led the study published in Advanced Healthcare Materials.

The most common cell type in the dermis, the connective tissue cell or fibroblast, is easy to remove from the body and grow in a lab. The connective tissue cell also has the advantage of being able to develop into more specialised cell types depending on what is needed. The researchers behind the study provide a scaffold by having the cells grow on tiny, porous beads of gelatine, a substance similar to skin collagen. But a liquid containing these beads poured on a wound will not stay there.

The researchers’ solution to the problem is mixing the gelatine beads with a gel consisting of another body-specific substance, hyaluronic acid. When the beads and gel are mixed, they are connected using what is known as click chemistry. The result is a gel that, somewhat simplified, can be called skin in a syringe.

“The gel has a special feature that means that it becomes liquid when exposed to light pressure. You can use a syringe to apply it to a wound, for example, and once applied it becomes gel-like again. This also makes it possible to 3D print the gel with the cells in it,” says Daniel Aili, professor of molecular physics at Linköping University, who led the study together with Johan Junker.

3D-printed transplant

In the current study, the researchers 3D-printed small pucks that were placed under the skin of mice. The results point to the potential of this technology to be used to grow the patient’s own cells from a minimal skin biopsy, which are then 3D-printed into a graft and applied to the wound.

“We see that the cells survive and it’s clear that they produce different substances that are needed to create new dermis. In addition, blood vessels are formed in the grafts, which is important for the tissue to survive in the body. We find this material very promising,” says Johan Junker.

Blood vessels are key to a variety of applications for engineered tissue-like materials. Scientists can grow cells in three-dimensional materials that can be used to build organoids. But there is a bottleneck as concerns these tissue models; they lack blood vessels to transport oxygen and nutrients to the cells. This means that there is a limit to how large the structures can get before the cells at the centre die from oxygen and nutrient deficiency.

Step towards labgrown blood vessels

The LiU researchers may be one step closer to solving the problem of blood vessel supply. In another article, also published in Advanced Healthcare Materials, the researchers describe a method for making threads from materials consisting of 98 per cent water, known as hydrogels.

“The hydrogel threads become quite elastic, so we can tie knots on them. We also show that they can be formed into mini-tubes, which we can pump fluid through or have blood vessel cells grow in,” says Daniel Aili.

The mini-tubes, or the perfusable channels as the researchers also call them, open up new possibilities for the development of blood vessels for eg, organoids.

Source: Linköping University

Categories : Injury & Trauma Regenerative MedicineTags :

Hope for Severe Burns Patients with New Skin Substitutes

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A dermal matrix – one of the latest advancements to regenerate skin after severe burns.

Severe burns remain one of the most challenging injuries to treat, causing high disease and death rates worldwide, but Australian researchers have flagged some promising new approaches that could save lives and dramatically improve patient recovery.

In a comprehensive review published in Advanced Therapeutics, researchers from the University of South Australia (UniSA), University of Adelaide and Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) explore the latest advancements in dermal substitutes – biochemicals used to replace damaged skin – with a particular focus on combating infection and enhancing tissue regeneration following catastrophic burns.

The researchers say that despite decades of progress, traditional treatments such as skin grafting often fail to provide adequate healing and infection control, leading to prolonged hospital stays and soaring healthcare costs.

According to the lead authors Dr Zlatko Kopecki and Dr Bronwyn Dearman, the urgency to develop safer, more effective solutions has never been greater.

“Infections are a major cause of complications and mortality in burn patients,” says Dr Kopecki, a Research Fellow at UniSA’s Future Industries Institute.

“We must innovate beyond conventional methods and develop therapies that regenerate tissue while actively preventing infections.”

Each year, approximately 2423 Australians are admitted to hospital with burn-related injuries, 74% of whom require surgery, including a skin graft. Globally, 180 000 people die from burns each year, and approximately 10 million are hospitalised, costing healthcare systems $112 billion worldwide.

The review highlights that while many commercial skin substitutes exist, very few offer integrated antimicrobial protection – a critical factor given the vulnerability of burn wounds to bacterial invasion and sepsis.

The paper discusses emerging technologies such as Kerecis, a novel fish skin graft with inherent antimicrobial properties, and NovoSorb BTM, a synthetic biodegradable matrix that resists bacterial colonisation without relying on antibiotics.

Both products represent a new generation of dermal substitutes with enhanced potential to protect and heal complex burns.

Kerecis comes from wild Atlantic cod, caught from a sustainable fish stock in pristine Icelandic waters and processed using renewable energy. It stands out for retaining natural omega-3 fatty acids, which have strong antimicrobial effects and promote wound healing.

Meanwhile, NovoSorb BTM’s unique polyurethane matrix offers structural resilience even in infected wounds, providing a vital scaffold for tissue regeneration.

“These materials demonstrate a shift towards multifunctional therapies that combine structural support with infection resistance,” says Dr Dearman, Principal Medical Scientist for the Skin Engineering Laboratory at the RAH and an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Adelaide.

“Such innovations are crucial, particularly as antibiotic-resistant infections continue to rise globally,” she says.

The review calls for the next wave of research to integrate active antimicrobial agents directly into 3D dermal scaffolds that support cell growth, reducing the reliance on antibiotics and temporary dressings.

Beyond infection control, the research points to scarless healing as the future frontier of burn care.

By combining smart biomaterials with cell-based therapies, scientists aim to regenerate skin that restores its full function – an outcome that could revolutionise the recovery for millions of burn survivors worldwide.

Source: University of South Australia

Categories : Injury & TraumaTags :

Burn Scars Worsen High School Educational Outcomes

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Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

A new study published in the BMJ’s Archives of Disease in Childhood has found that young people who were hospitalised due to burns were less likely to finish high school than their peers.

Led by Associate Professor Rebecca Mitchell from the Australian Institute of Health Innovation (AIHI) at Macquarie University, the study compared the academic performance and high school completion rates of about 2000 young people to matched peers who had not been hospitalised for an injury.

The study found that the young people who had been burned were four times as likely to not finish Year 10, and more than twice as likely to not finish Year 11 or Year 12.

This research is the latest in a series of studies looking at the effects of hospitalisation for injuries and illnesses including broken bones, asthma, diabetes, epilepsy and mental health on young people’s educational outcomes.

The research team used linked birth, health and education records in New South Wales from 2005 to 2018 to analyse national literacy and numeracy test results and high school completion.

To create a peer comparison group, each hospitalised young person was age and gender matched to a random person in their postcode area who had not been hospitalised for an injury.

In the case of the burns patients, the most common cause of injury was contact with hot drinks, food, fats or cooking oils, followed by other hot fluids including hot or boiling water.

Almost all of the children in the burns cohort had more than 10% of the surface of their bodies affected, with torsos the most commonly injured area, followed by hands or wrists.

Associate Professor Mitchell says in addition to an increased risk of not finishing high school, girls who had burn injuries also had a higher risk of not achieving the national minimum standards in reading.

“Reasons why young females hospitalised with a burn have worse academic performance for reading could include reduced learning opportunities, school absenteeism, or psychosocial anxieties due to lower self-esteem and stigmatisation,” she says.

“This research shows that we need to monitor academic progression in young people after they sustain a burn to identify if they require any learning support.”

Paediatric burns specialist and co-author Professor Andrew Holland says that while most burns occur early in childhood, the effects can extend far beyond the initial period of acute care and recovery.

“In some cases, burns patients experience ongoing pain and poor sleep quality, which can disrupt a young person’s ability to engage and learn,” he says.

“In addition to this, scarring can have an influence on their motivation or ability to attend school.”

Source: Macquarie University

Categories : Injury & TraumaTags :

A Handheld Terahertz Scanner Could Accurately Assess Burns

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Ambulance
Photo by Camilo Jimenez on Unsplash

Researchers have developed a handheld terahertz (THz) wave imaging device to assess burns faster and more accurately than current methods. The new device uses neural network model that uses terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) data for non-invasive burn assessment.

“It is important for healthcare professionals to accurately assess the depth of a burn to provide the most appropriate treatment,” said research team leader M. Hassan Arbab from Stony Brook University. “However, current methods of burn depth evaluation, which rely on visual and tactile examination, have been shown to be unreliable, with accuracy rates hovering around 60–75%. Our new approach could potentially improve the accuracy of burn severity assessments and aid in treatment planning.”

THz-TDS uses short pulses of terahertz radiation, which lies between infrared and microwave wavelengths, to probe a sample. It is being examined for assessing burn injuries because physical changes caused by a burn will produce alterations in the skin’s terahertz reflectivity.

In the journal Biomedical Optics Express, the researchers reported that their artificial neural network classification algorithm was able to accurately predict the ultimate healing outcome of in vivo burns in an animal study with 93% accuracy. Their method needs much less training data, potentially making it more practical to process big data sets obtained over large clinical trials.

“In 2018, approximately 416 000 patients were treated for burn injuries in emergency departments in the United States alone,” said Arbab. “Our research has the potential to significantly improve burn healing outcomes by guiding surgical treatment plans, which could have a major impact on reducing the length of hospital stays and number of surgical procedures for skin grafting while also improving rehabilitation after injury.”

Better burn assessment

Various technologies have been developed to improve burn assessment, but they haven’t been widely adopted in the clinic due to drawbacks such as long acquisition times, high costs and limited penetration depth and field of view. Although THz-TDS looks promising for burn assessment, early demonstrations were limited to point spectroscopy measurements, which don’t account for burn heterogeneity and spatial variations. THz spectroscopy setups also tend to be bulky and difficult to set up.

“To address these challenges, we developed the portable handheld spectral reflection (PHASR) scanner, a user-friendly device for fast hyperspectral imaging of in vivo burn injuries using THz-TDS,” said Arbab. The device allows for “rapid imaging of a 37 x 27 mm2 field of view in just a few seconds.”

Previously, the researchers used numerical methods to extract features from the THz-TDS images and machine learning techniques to estimate the severity grade of in vivo burn injuries using measurements from the PHASR scanner. However, this approach did not consider the physical dynamics and macroscopic changes of the dielectric permittivity of burned skin tissue. Dielectric permittivity describes how a material responds to an electric field, and the researchers used Debye theory to explain how biological material interacts with THz waves.

The researchers tested their method by using the PHASR scanner to obtain spectroscopic images of skin burns and measure the permittivity of the burns. The researchers used this data to create a neural network model based on labelled biopsies. The model estimated the severity of the burns with an average accuracy rate of 84.5% and predicted the outcome of the wound healing process with an accuracy rate of 93%.

The researchers note that clinical testing of both the technique and the handheld imaging device are needed before this technique could be integrated into the existing workflow of clinical burn assessment.

Source: Optica

Categories : Injury & Trauma TransplantsTags :

First Successful Face and Double Hand Transplant

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Doctors in New York have performed the world’s first successful face and double hand transplant.

The patient, 22 year-old Joe DiMeo, had suffered burns over 80% of his body in a 2018 crash, resulting in his fingers being amputated. His eyelids and lips were also amputated. He had been driving home from a night shift when he fell asleep at the wheel and his car crashed, bursting into flames. He spent four months in a burns unit, much of it in an induced coma. After 20 reconstructive surgeries, he still had only limited use of his hands and face.

In a 23-hour operation, doctors attached the donor’s face and hands. He then spent 45 days in ICU, then a further two months in hospital. Mr DiMeo learned to open his new eyelids and move his hands, and is now spending up to five hours a day in rehab.

Eduardo Rodriguez, director of the Face Transplant Program, said: “We wanted to give him not only an operation that made him look better, but it ultimately had to work ideally, especially with the hands.” He added that Mr DiMeo is the most motivated patient he had met.

The doctors waited to ensure that the transplant had taken before calling it successful. While a face and double hand transplants had been performed before, one patient died from complications and the other had to have their hands amputated when they failed to thrive.

Hand transplants have progressed a great deal since the first successful one in 1998. Enormous strides have been made in immunosuppression since then, requiring fewer drugs with less resultant toxicity and side effects. There is also a protocol for using donor bone marrow and stem cells to modulate the immune system in place of typical immunosuppression.

Mr Dimeo says that he can now exercise and make breakfast unaided.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime gift, and I hope the family can take some comfort knowing that part of the donor lives on with me,” Mr Dimeo said. “My parents and I are very grateful that I’ve been given this second chance.”

Source: BBC News

Categories : UncategorizedTags :

New “Spray-on” Wound Dressing Mimics Skin

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A new kind of burn dressing developed by an Israeli company, Nanomedic, is being used in Israel, Europe and India, and applies a flexible dressing without contact.

Called “Spincare”, it is contactless and is sprayed on by an applicator. Normal burn dressings are difficult to apply because they can cause so much pain.The breathable “skin substitute” is flexible, which is important for allowing movement for wound rehabilitation, and is also easy for patients to apply. Unlike traditional wound dressings, it also allows patients to shower, and, being translucent, allows clinicians to inspect the wound without having to remove the dressing.

The technology is based on “electrospinning“, where electricity is applied to a solution to make nanofibres. Electrospinning had mostly been used to produce air filters, but it was only until the 1990s that the technology began to acquire other applications. Though the technology has been used in medical applications before, this is the first time such a device small enough to use at a patient’s bedside has been developed.

It is effective at treating shallow burns, but less effective for deep burns, according to the manufacturer. It also has applications in areas such as facial wound dressings, where traditional bandages are cumbersome, This new technology comes at a time when there is debate in wound care management, as to whether frequent replacement of dressing for checking purposes is in fact counterproductive. This new technology would join other types of wound dressing increasingly being used that require fewer changes.

Source: The Guardian