Complex-to-heal injuries result from diverse reasons, including, but not limited to, inadequate blood flow, disruption from tissue loss, and comorbid disease states. Such wound types need wound care experts to include an additional component in their management, like wound biologics or skin substitutes. Understanding diverse kinds of skin substitutes, their advantages, and protective considerations allows specialists to recognize the perfect skin substitute for numerous kinds of chronic and complex-to-heal wounds.
What are Skin Substitutes?
Skin substitutes are biological and artificial materials that offer provisional or permanent coverage to exposed skin injuries. With time, such materials can reestablish skin functionalities in the impacted wound patient.
As the skin is the largest organ in the human body and continually relates to the external atmosphere, it is vulnerable to injury or wounds. Therefore, skin alternates are essential for suitable wound healing, reliant on the wound severity.
In addition to accelerating the healing process, doctors can minimize complications caused by skin substitutes in a variety of wounds, e.g., pressure ulcers, burns, nail disorders, ischemia, and traumatic injuries.
Browse detailed report analysis on Skin Replacement and Substitutes Market Growth and Future Analysis
Types of Skin Substitutes
Skin substitutes can either be permanent or temporary. While the provisional skin substitutes offer the best wound healing atmosphere via moisture optimization and shield from the exterior environment for up to four weeks before deletion, the permanent ones stay on the wound place, advancing skin quality at the wound place.
Temporary Skin Substitutes
Synthetic and natural skin alternates are the 2 common sub-divisions of temporary skin substitutes. As the name says, the natural skin substitute is material from processed and equipped live cells, while the synthetic is artificial and fulfills precise wound needs.
Human amnion, human allograft, pig xenograft, and Oasis wound matrix are some types of natural skin substitutes. Human amnion, a membrane covering a fetus inside a womb, is another temporary substitute ideal for burns and other superficial ulcers.
Permanent Skin Substitutes
A few permanent skin substitutes comprise Integra, Epicel, and Alloderm. Epicel (or cultured epithelial autograft) is a permanent skin substitute from a cultured skin operation of the external skin layer of the patient. This skin substitute kind offers a permanent skin covering for burn patients who need coverage for up to 40% of the entire body area.
Alloderm includes a treated dermis layer of the human cadaver skin perfect for confronting soft tissue flaws and deep burn injuries. Likewise, Integra includes an inner dermal analog layer for joining present wound cells, helping cell development, and building new blood vessels.
Advantages of Skin Substitutes
Skin substitutes quicken wound healing and diminish contagions, dehydration, and complications. Such materials also provide cosmetic advantages and make the most of the functionality and flexibility of wound sites.
Skin substitutes are perfect for non-healing or tough-to-heal injuries, such as pressure ulcers, vascular insufficiency ulcers, and diabetic neuropathic ulcers. The high illness, contagion, amputation, and even death rate of such wounds informs the requirement for healthcare specialists to include skin substitutes in their treatment.
Other Benefits of Skin Substitutes Include:
• Quicker wound closure
• Surge in development factors
• Fibroblast formation facilitation
• Angiogenesis; quickens blood vessel-making
• Helps the making of endothelial cells
• Creation of extracellular collagen matrix