PGH puts up first skin donation unit

The Philippine General Hospital (PGH) has started to set up the country’s first skin donation unit which will soon cater to the needs of thermally injured patients, offering modern treatment of burns using skin from dead organ donors.

Dr. Jeane Azarcon, chief of PGH’s Division of Burns, said the most frequent problem encountered in the treatment of major burns is the lack of autogenous skin grafts coming from the patient’s unburned skin.

This problem, she added, has been and continues to be the major factor that will determine the survival of a thermally injured patient.

The Division of Burns of the PGH’s Department of Surgery has worked for many years to come up with the most favorable way to remedy the problem, given the country’s social, economic and technological conditions.

"With this in mind, it has been decided that the best way to remedy the problem is to set up the first-ever Cadaveric Skin Bank in the country. In major burns where the problem of insufficient skin grafts arises, wound covering by fresh or stored allogeneic human skin is currently preferred over the use of biosynthetic dressings by most burn surgeons," Azarcon said.

The Skin Bank of the Philippines (SBP) is a subsidiary of the Burn Foundation of the Philippines which aims to provide burn victims with human skin grafts on a non-profit basis, and eventually also other burn centers around the country. The SBP will adopt methods which the Euro Skin Bank is currently using.

Willing organ donors are encouraged to include their skin among the other organs (kidneys, eyes, liver, heart, lungs and pancreas) which they wish to donate, as stated in their organ donor cards.

However, not all donors could be qualified. General absolute contraindications include malignancies (except brain tumor), serological evidence of HIV, sepsis postmortem interval of more than 24 hours (more than 12 hours of uncooled cadavers), those aged below 18, death due to drowning, tuberculosis and slow viral illnesses.

Some of the relative contraindications are intravenous drug use, alcohol abuse, belonging to "high risk" groups (HIV and other transmittable diseases) and unknown cause of death.

"We need to involve ourselves actively, both in the public and professional education program, to further contribute to an improved awareness of issues concerning organ tissue as well as skin donation," Azarcon said.

The SBP will operate on a 24-hour basis with the assurance that it will be able to respond swiftly within an average of four hours from notification to harvesting from potential donors, from any location, with prescribed aseptic removal of the skin.