A bilayered skin substitute has been heavily promoted for the treatment of venous ulcers and other wounds on the basis that it is composed of viable cells. How long do these living cells survive? The study by Phillips and colleagues1 entitled "The Longevity of a Bilayered Skin Substitute After Application to Venous Ulcers" appears to address this issue. The authors' stated objective is "to determine the longevity of allogeneic fibroblasts and keratinocytes in a bilayered skin substitute in patients with venous leg ulcers."
Longevity refers to the time something exists as a living cell or organism. For example, the longevity of a parasite buried in tissue refers to how long the organism remains alive. If parts of a dead organism are retained for years, as sometimes occurs, this is not longevity.
However, what Phillips and colleagues did was to determine how long the DNA of the bilayered skin substitute Apligraf . . . [Full Text of this Article]
