Medical experts yesterday called on the government to take measures to set up a repository for human skin in Taiwan, a facility which would be vital in times of earthquakes or war, they said.
"A skin bank is meant to save lives," said Lin Tsou-wu (
Lin said most countries have at least one national "skin bank" to centralize skin donations, pointing out that Taiwan is underdeveloped in this regard.
"Since there is no centralized or national skin bank, many large hospitals have established their own skin banks, albeit on a very limited scale. The result is that donated skin cannot reach many burn injury patients in time," he said.
Discussing potential sources of burn injuries in Taiwan, organizers of the Third Asian-Pacific Burns Conference, currently being held in Taipei, invited experts from Israel to share their experiences.
"Israel has been through several wars and terrorist attacks have caused hundreds of burn injuries. Such casualties are the result of various types of disasters -- both natural and man-made," said Arieh Eldad, Surgeon General of the Israel Defense Forces Medical Corps.
He said skin currently available at their bank is enough to cover roughly100 square meters.
"The skin coverage of a whole body is only around two square meters," Lin said, adding that having 20 to 30 square meters on hand would be enough for Taiwan to set up a skin bank.
Lin emphasized that skin grafting is only for emergency treatment, and usually only for massive burns injuries that affect more than 40 percent of the body.
He said, however, that in the case of an attack by China or a major city being hit by an earthquake, demand for skin for grafting would be much higher. "But we don't even have one national skin bank yet," he said.
The donation and collection of graftable skin is another problem Taiwan must deal with. According to the Department of Health, skin has not been listed among the seven existing organs one can list for donation after death.
"Skin is the body's biggest organ. Donations should be just as feasible as with other major organs," Lin said.
Lin also said grafting skin is easier than transplanting other organs, because there are no problems with type-matching, and no risk of rejection.
Other problems, however, such as potentially infectious skin diseases among donors, still need to be taken into account.
Without a repository for skin, the use of artificial skin has become a common way to treat burn injuries in Taiwan. Currently, artificial skin must be imported, and the normally large scale of grafts makes the procedure very expensive.
Lin estimated a complete treatment would cost between NT$100,000 and NT$1 million.
"But national health insurance won't pay for this," Lin added.
Yang Jui-yung (楊瑞永), a doctor at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (長庚醫院), said more than 15 percent of burn patients are classified as having `serious' burns covering over 20 percent of their body.
The use of artificial skin in Taiwan exceeds that of real skin, but one of the serious disadvantages of the artificial type is that it is more fragile and prone to infection than real skin.
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