Why is skin grafting done

The area will be covered with a sterile dressing until it has connected with the surrounding blood supply, which usually takes around 5 to 7 days.

A dressing will also be placed over the area where the skin has been taken from the donor site to help protect it from infection. The donor area of partial thickness skin grafts usually takes about 2 weeks to heal. For full thickness skin grafts, the donor area only takes about 5 to 10 days to heal, because it's usually quite small and closed with stitches. At first, the colour of the grafted skin may appear red or purple, but it should begin to look more like your surrounding skin over time.

It can take a year or two for the appearance of the skin to settle down completely. The final colour may be slightly different from the surrounding skin, and the area may be slightly indented. Tissue expansion is a procedure that encourages the body to "grow" extra skin by stretching surrounding tissue. This extra skin can then be used to help reconstruct the nearby area. Examples of when tissue expansion may be used include breast reconstruction and repairing large wounds.

Under general anaesthetic, a balloon-like device called an expander is inserted under the skin near the area to be repaired. This is gradually filled with salt water, causing the skin to stretch and grow. The time it takes for the tissue to be expanded can vary, depending on the size of the area to be repaired.

Healthy skin is taken from a place on your body called the donor site. Most people who are having a skin graft have a split-thickness skin graft. This takes the two top layers of skin from the donor site the epidermis and the layer under the epidermis the dermis.

The donor site can be any area of the body. Most times, it is an area that is hidden by clothes, such as the buttock or inner thigh. The graft is carefully spread on the bare area where it is being transplanted.

It is held in place either by gentle pressure from a well-padded dressing that covers it, or by staples or a few small stitches. The donor-site area is covered with a sterile dressing for 3 to 5 days. People with deeper tissue loss may need a full-thickness skin graft.

This requires the entire thickness of skin from the donor site, not just the top two layers. A full-thickness skin graft is a more complicated procedure. Common donor sites for full-thickness skin grafts include the chest wall, neck, back, or abdominal wall. Full-thickness grafts are done when a lot of tissue is lost. This can happen with open fractures of the lower leg, or after severe infections. You should recover quickly after split-thickness skin grafting.

Full-thickness grafts need a longer recovery time. If you received this kind of graft, you may need to stay in the hospital for recovery. It is impossible to cut the skin without scarring of some degree. The final cosmetic result of a skin graft depends on many factors including the type of skin graft, the location, the size and depth of the wound, and patient factors.

Because skin grafts are effectively a patch without their own blood supply and sometimes of less thickness than the wound they are applied to, the final appearance may not be as close to normal as it would be if the wound was able to be closed in a straight line or with a skin flap.

The have a tendency to look paler and flatter than the surrounding skin with time. You will have two scars, the scar where the skin graft has been applied and the scar from where the skin graft was taken donor site. The donor site for a full thickness skin graft will usually be closed in a straight line with stitches. The donor site for a split thickness graft however will consist of a superficial graze and will heal itself more slowly initially under a special dressing.

This grazed area can often be tender post-operatively and require some oral pain relief such as paracetamol. Some people have an abnormal response to skin healing resulting in larger scars than usual keloid or hypertrophic scarring. Split skin grafts This type of skin graft is taken by shaving the surface layers epidermis and a variable thickness of dermis of the skin with a large knife called a dermatome.

The shaved piece of skin is then applied to the wound. This type of skin graft is often taken from the leg. A split skin graft is often used after excision of a lesion on the lower leg.

Full thickness skin grafts This type of skin graft is taken by removing all the layers of the skin with a scalpel a Wolfe graft. It is done in a similar way to skin excision. The piece of skin is cut into the correct shape, then applied to the wound. Treatment options depend on the severity of your burn. Learn more. Find information about chemical burns and how to prevent them.

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