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A Controlled Trial, LSE vs Killed LSE, Is Needed
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| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings. |
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Muhart el al,1 in their August ARCHIVES study on living skin equivalent (LSE) treatment of split-thickness donor sites, established that LSE is a well-tolerated, albeit expensive ($140 per square inch), wound dressing. That is all. Their speculation that "LSE behaves like autograft" and might provide an "off the shelf" substitute for a skin graft1 ignores fundamental differences in healing between partial- and full-thickness skin wounds. Partial-thickness wounds heal rapidly as a result of reepithelization from adnexal tissue in the wound base. Full-thickness wounds heal slowly and do not reepithelize from their base; that is why skin grafts are employed as cover.
The healing rate of partial-thickness wounds varies with the dressing as the authors point out: "studies of different dressing in the treatment of donor sites have shown a wide range of healing times." The fact that the LSE-treated wounds healed 2 days faster than the control synthetic dressing (Tegaderm; . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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