MEN IN BED: FORESKINS
One foreskin can go a long way. Researchers in Sydney have found a method of making one young foreskin expand into enough skin to cover fifty adult bodies. They perform this amazing feat using foreskins which would otherwise be discarded. Over the years, they have collected these byproducts of circumcision, taken them into the laboratory and cultured them.
With their new culturing techniques, they are now able to grow vast quantities of full-thickness skin from one small piece of foreskin. This cultured skin can potentially then be used for skin grafts.
Even those deeply committed to the anti-circumcision movement would have to acknowledge that using the foreskin in this way has considerable potential benefits. To date, cultured skin has been successfully used to treat bum victims and ‘cotton-wool’ children. Such children have skin like tissue paper that blisters and tears at the slightest touch.
When skin culturing began in the United States in the early 1980s, Sydney doctors quickly learned the methods and began experimenting with them here. By the late 1980s they had greatly improved the technique, and now they have developed it even further.
Dr Mark Eisenberg is a family practitioner who has been at the helm of this project since it began. He is highly motivated because one of his children suffers from the cotton-wool syndrome, a hereditary disease known as epidermolysis bullosa (EB). Initially Dr Eisenberg’s team experimented with fresh skin removed during cosmetic surgery but later
decided to use foreskins because, coming from infants, they are less likely to be tainted. Adults encounter a range of diseases and infections during their life and some of these may leave a legacy in the skin.
The foreskins used are not from newborns or from ritual circumcisions. They are mostly from infants, six months and older, who are circumcised under general anaesthetic in hospital. They are used only with parents’ consent. Before being used, the foreskins are, subjected to rigorous testing to ensure they are disease free. (At present, foreskins are also being used for research in other areas of medicine such as virology and melanoma research.)
During the 1980s, the Americans managed to culture cells and grow the top layer of skin called the epidermis. But they needed to work with skin from a related donor, or the graft would be rejected.
The Sydney team improved on the technique by finding a way to culture skin of full thickness which would not be rejected. They were able to take a piece of foreskin the size of a postage stamp and in six weeks make it grow into enough skin to cover half an adult. The average adult has about 1.3 square metres of skin.
They experimented on Australian soldiers who had tired of their tattoos and wanted to get rid of them. These soldiers volunteered to have cultured skin used.
The skin worked and Dr Eisenberg’s team successfully used it in twenty-two operations on children with the cotton-wool syndrome at the Prince of Wales Hospital. These children need repeated skin grafts because their skin breaks frequently, and when it heals, it scars. A build-up of scar tissue can distort joints and restrict movement.
The cultured skin operations were such a success that this has become an accepted method of treatment during the reconstructive surgery of the hands in children suffering from EB.
The skin was also used on one Sydney boy who was badly burned at a barbecue. The boy had cultured skin grafted onto his forearm. Now, a few years later, Dr Eisenberg says the skin on his forearm has pigmented and looks quite natural.
Dr Eisenberg’s goal is to complete all the research and testing so that a public skin bank can be opened. Such a bank would have a stockpile of cultured skin, stored frozen, which could be sent interstate and overseas whenever it was needed. Skin from the bank could be used for emergencies like motor and industrial accidents, bone-crushing injuries and skin cancers. It may also help people suffering from skin-disfiguring diseases.
Until recently, people needing skin grafts were given skin from cadavers or used their own harvested skin. But harvesting skin creates new wounds, and cadaveric skin grafts can involve up to twenty operations.
The Sydney team has now developed its culturing methods even further. Before, it could only get forty million cells from a humble foreskin. Now it can get billions. This incredible multiplication means the team no longer needs to collect foreskins. It has enough cells in stock.
As Dr Eisenberg explains, ‘In one foreskin there is the potential to produce enough skin to cover half a football held.’
*5\136\4*
Related Posts:
Tags: Women’s Health
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 4:40 am and is filed under Women's Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.