540 Treatment of Severe Burns with Autologous Skin Cell Suspension and Meshed Autograft with Allograft Overlay

Abstract Introduction Autologous skin cell suspension (ASCS) is gaining in popularity in the treatment of severe burns. Prior to the approval of ASCS, widely meshed autograft with allograft overlay is the standard of care in the treatment of severe burns. We are reporting a novel technique of using ASCS and widely meshed autograft with allograft overlay on a series of patients with full thickness flame and scald burns. Methods The study is a retrospective chart review of patients from May 2019 to February of 2020. Inclusion criteria: full thickness injury, had multiple staged excisions, with or without allografting, grafted widely meshed 4:1 autograft and ASCS with allograft overlay. Demographic data, grafting information, and time to re-epithelization with photographic evidence were collected. Results Six patients were studied from the inclusion criteria: age 24–70, TBSA% 16–77. All surgeries were performed by a single surgeon. All patients had excision/wound bed preparation via tangential excision, autografted with 4:1 mesh. ASCS was applied, and 2:1 allograft was secured onto the wound. Size of the grafts range from 235 cm2 to 3880 cm2. Average time to ≥95% re-epithelialization was 23 days (range 15 days to 35 days). Conclusions By using this novel technique, average time to fully epithelized was 23 days. This compares favorably to the previously presented outcome of ≥95% re-epithelialization in 96% of ASCS-treated wounds after 8 weeks. More studies are needed to validate this finding.