New Treatment in Burns: Handheld Skin Printers

According to the American Burn Association, approximately 450,000 victims are seen in emergency rooms every year to receive treatment for burns. Approximately 3,400 fatalities occur every year due to severe burns. Skin grafts have long been the traditional treatment to encourage healing. However, innovative techniques are continually being introduced. One of the most recent developments involves handheld skin printers .

A research team from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering developed the technique. Their handheld device sprays sheets of “bio-ink” over the burn site to encourage healing. Recent trials involving the technology proved successful in creating healthy skin on pigs.

The handheld printer prototype was introduced in 2018. Prior to the invention, a 2014 version involved a printer approximately the size of a standard microwave oven. The current model prints a sheet of biological material consisting of mesenchymal stromal cells, or stem cells, that have the ability to mature into particular cell types. The new process causes skin regeneration with minimal scarring. An area being treated may be covered with the material in two minutes.

The latest trials tested the success of the printing technique when used on full-thickness burns. The severity of the burns involves all layers of the skin. The researchers sprayed the biomaterial directly onto the burn sites of pigs. The sheets not only effectively regenerated skin cells but the technique also encouraged new blood vessel development.

The Toronto team plans to enhance the technique to further minimize scarring. However, they believe the printers would be used by clinicians within five years. The technique has the potential for saving many lives. The spray printing technique would greatly benefit victims who lose large areas of skin secondary to severe burns.

ReCell

The technique was developed by Avita Medical and uses the victim’s healthy skin. Physicians need to merely remove a patch of healthy skin approximately the same size as a postage stamp. The cells within the sample are then dispersed in a special solution and sprayed onto the burn site. The treated area may span up to 80 times larger than the donor site. The entire process of taking a skin sample and applying the suspension lasts 30 minutes. The technique has also been successful in treating large, open wounds.

Originally published at https://johnbrewerlaw.org.