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Updated: Feb 14, 2026
Murine Full-thickness Skin Transplantation
Published on: January 2, 2017
Long-term Scar Quality after Treatment of Standardized Partial-Thickness Skin Graft Donor Sites
Alexandra Schulz1, Irene Rothermund, Rolf Lefering
1At the University of Witten/Herdecke, Cologne-Merheim Medical Center, Cologne, Germany, Alexandra Schulz, MD, is a Consultant, Department of Plastic Surgery, Hand Surgery, Burn Center; Irene Rothermund is a Student, Department of Plastic Surgery, Hand Surgery, Burn Center; Rolf Lefering, PhD, is a Statistician, Institute for Research in Operative Medicine; Paul Christian Fuchs, PhD, is a Professor and Director, Department of Plastic, Reconstructive, Aesthetic, and Hand Surgery; and Jennifer Schiefer, MD is a Consultant, Department of Plastic Surgery, Hand Surgery, Burn Center.
Background:
The long-term aesthetic appearance of scars is of great importance to patients. Biobrane (Smith and Nephew, Fort Worth, Texas), a biosynthetic skin dressing, is a successfully established dressing for the treatment of superficial wounds. A new silk barrier dressing (Dressilk; Prevor, Moulin de Verville, France) has also shown good results in wound healing. This study evaluated the long-term scar quality of superficial wounds treated with these dressings.
Methods:
From February 2012 to May 2013, 11 patients with burns in need of skin grafting received donor site treatment. Study authors dressed 2 adjacent, standardized, partial-thickness skin graft donor sites on each participant with Biobrane or Dressilk. Scar formation on both treated areas was compared 24 months after initial application using subjective and objective assessment methods.
Results:
Independent of treatment, the majority of the patients described scar quality similar to normal skin using subjective and objective evaluation tools. However, for scar perfusion, significantly lower oxygen saturation was shown in both treated areas compared with untreated skin.
Conclusions:
Comparatively, the 2 wound dressings showed similar results, making silk dressings an interesting alternative to biosynthetic ones.
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