Temporary Skin Transplantation and Immunosuppression for Extensive Burns

CHILDREN with full-thickness burns of over 70 per cent of the body surface whose total burn injury covers over 80 per cent do not ordinarily survive despite the use of temporary skin substitutes and topical antibacterial therapy.1 , 2 This lack of success is related to the short time that available skin substitutes last as an effective physiologic cover. Viable allografts of skin, if obtained from random donors, are rejected in about 14 days,3 and, in our experience, even if obtained from a parent and selected by tissue type matching of at least two genotypes, will seldom last over 20 days in . . .