The clinical applications of human amnion in plastic surgery

Since the early 1900s, human amnion has been applied to a wide variety of clinical scenarios including burns, chronic ulcers, dural defects, intra-abdominal adhesions, peritoneal reconstruction, genital reconstruction, hip arthroplasty, tendon repair, nerve repair, microvascular reconstruction, corneal repair, intra-oral reconstruction and reconstruction of the nasal lining and tympanic membrane. Amnion epithelial and mesenchymal cells have been shown to contain a variety of regulatory mediators that result in the promotion of cellular proliferation, differentiation and epithelialisation and the inhibition of fibrosis, immune rejection, inflammation and bacterial invasion. The full repertoire of biological factors that these cells synthesise, store and release and the mechanisms by which these factors exert their beneficial effects are only now being fully appreciated. Although many commercially available biological and synthetic alternatives to amnion exist, ethical, religious, and financial constraints may limit the widespread utilisation of these products. Amnion is widely available, economical and is easy to manipulate, process and store. Although many clinical applications are of historical interest only, amnion offers an alternative source of multi-potent or pluripotent stem cells and therefore may yet have a great deal to offer the plastic surgery and regenerative medicine community. It is the purpose of this article to review the clinical applications of human amnion relevant to plastic surgery.