New Treatment for Burns

The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine is leading a trial to test a new technology, known as ReCell^®, for treating burns. Skin cells are harvested in the operating room from a small area of a patient’s healthy skin. Within minutes, these cells are processed and put in a suspension so they can be sprayed onto the burn – able to cover an area eighty times the size of the biopsy. The cells multiply and create new skin tissue. Because the cells are grown from a patient’s own cells, there is no risk of rejection. Testing in Europe has shown that the treatment results in faster wound healing and potentially less scarring.

The technology was developed in Australia by Fiona Wood, M.D. and Marie Stoner. The trial, which will involve 10 U.S. burn centers, will be coordinated by James H. Holmes IV, M.D., director of the Wake Forest Baptist Burn Center.

“In patients with significant burns, the difficulty we face as surgeons is that there isn’t enough healthy skin to harvest for grafts,” said Holmes. “This technology has the potential to solve that dilemma as well as to promote healing without significant scarring. AFIRM offers the mechanism for this promising treatment to be tested in the U.S.”

PARTICIPATING CENTERS

Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center
Loyola University Medical Center Burn Center
University of Arizona Burn Center
University of Florida Burn Center
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill Jaycee Burn Center
University of Tennessee-Memphis Firefighters Burn Center
University of Washington/Harborview Burn Center
University of Indiana Richard M. Fairbanks Burn Center
U.S. Army Institute for Surgical Research
Vanderbilt University Medical Center Burn Center