First Skin Bank of Coastal Karnataka: Our Journey so Far

In India around 7 million people suffer from burn injuries each year, with 140,000 deaths and 240,000 people having some form of residual disability. Human skin allograft is the gold standard for the treatment of burn wounds, hence having an in-house skin bank at a Burn Unit would be ideal. This article presents the efforts to introduce the concept of skin donation after death to the population of Udupi and Mangalore District, the response to this venture, and how our in-house skin bank helps in the management of patients in our burns centre. This study is a descriptive study done at our skin bank at Kasturba Medical College Hospital Manipal. All donor and recipient records of cadaveric allografts from MAHE Skin Bank from inception on 21-8-2021 to date were analysed. From inauguration to date, a total of 23 skin donation calls have been attended and a total of 56,560 sq. cm of skin harvested, with an average of 2570 sq. cm of skin harvested from the back and the bilateral lower limbs. A total of 20 inpatients in our burns unit received 28,475 sq. cm of cadaveric skin from our skin bank, with 3 patients dying due to sepsis (mortality rate - 15.00%). It is feasible to create a skin bank in a community with no concept of cadaveric skin donation, as demonstrated by the successful establishment of Coastal Karnataka's first skin bank at KMC Manipal Hospital.