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Skin Bank Bioproducts: The Basics

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Technology in Practical Dermatology

Abstract

Skin banks are tissue establishments dedicated to the procurement, processing, and distribution of human-derived skin bioproducts for clinical purposes. A skin bank must observe national/international guidelines and perform standardized procedures to ensure tissue traceability and biological safety in all processing stages and to avoid potential biological contamination. In order to minimize the risk of transmission of pathogenic agents, rigorous donor screening, extensive microbiological and serological tests for transmissible diseases are performed before tissue procurement; in addition, careful quality controls are conducted during tissue manipulation. Skin bank organization is complex, including multiple fully trained work teams dedicated to either the harvesting or the processing phases, employed in research laboratories or in the distribution activity and application in hospital/clinical setting. All dedicated personnel require constant training and updating. Many different types of skin bioproducts can be released from a skin bank, depending on the processing and storage method (deep-freezing/cryopreservation/glycerol-preservation/lyophilization), tissue viability, graft thickness, and the post-processing tissue preparation (meshed-expansion or not). Skin bank bioproducts have been used as a temporary dressing or, in burns, as definitive grafts in several types of loss of substance, for different clinical purposes: promotion of re-epithelization, healing time reduction, pain control, and protection of fragile subcutaneous structures (cartilage, tendons, bones, and nerves). Though a great variety of dermal matrices and skin equivalents are available, synthetic and semisynthetic, viable human skin allografts are still considered the most physiological alternative to autologous skin in burns and hard-to-heal wounds. The demand for human-derived skin bioproducts continues to be a reason for the existence of skin banks.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dermatology Division, Department of Medical, Surgical and Neuro-Sciences, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

    Linda Tognetti, Francesca Ierardi, Giancarlo Mariotti, Michele Fimiani, Pietro Rubegni & Elisa Pianigiani

  2. Department of Medical Biotechnologies, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

    Linda Tognetti

  3. Skin Bank Unit, University Hospital of Siena, Siena, Italy

    Linda Tognetti, Francesca Ierardi, Giancarlo Mariotti, Angela Petruzzelli, Gerarda Pompella & Elisa Pianigiani

Authors
  1. Linda Tognetti
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  2. Francesca Ierardi
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  3. Giancarlo Mariotti
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  4. Angela Petruzzelli
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  5. Gerarda Pompella
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  6. Michele Fimiani
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  7. Pietro Rubegni
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  8. Elisa Pianigiani
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dermatology Unit, Department of Medical, Surgical and Neuro-Sciences, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

    Michele Fimiani

  2. Dermatology Unit, Department of Medical, Surgical and Neuro-Sciences, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

    Pietro Rubegni

  3. Dermatology Unit, Department of Medical, Surgical and Neuro-Sciences, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

    Elisa Cinotti

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Tognetti, L. et al. (2020). Skin Bank Bioproducts: The Basics. In: Fimiani, M., Rubegni, P., Cinotti, E. (eds) Technology in Practical Dermatology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45351-0_41

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45351-0_41

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-45350-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-45351-0

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