Burn victims can pin hopes on skin bank

Little Carly Jacobs's skin, badly burnt in a paraffin accident earlier this year, is a contour map of what happens when flames touch the human body.

But the same landscape of tissue shows the work of South Africa's new skin bank, which is changing the fate of burn victims.

Cadaver skin was used as a temporary covering for and applied twice to the eight-year-old Cape Town girl's body, 60% of which was affected by burns.

Carly's mother, Lindle Jacobs, said: "If it wasn't for the people who donated the skin, probably Carly would have taken much longer to heal. They said she'd be in hospital for four months, but with the skin from the bank, she was out after seven weeks."

For years the South African Burn Society has worked to establish a skin bank. In April it came together after its president, Dr Nikki Allorto, brought the Centre for Tissue Engineering at the Tshwane University of Technology on board.

Already 23 children at the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital in Rondebosch, Cape Town, have received skin through the bank. At the paediatric burn unit at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Johannesburg, four have been helped.

Dr Roux Martinez of the burns unit at Red Cross said: "Before the skin bank, there was only a 24- to 48-hour period to harvest and use the skin from a donor, if one was fortunate enough to find one at the time. If there were no donors, survival of the patient would be severely compromised."

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She said it was difficult caring for the patients while also trying to source donor skin. Time was also lost waiting for blood results from the donor to give the all clear.

Now the skin bank couriers the skin tissue, fully assessed and sterilised, within hours to major burn centres and the doctor's full attention can be on stabilisation and preparation for surgery, Martinez said. As a result patients are discharged in "record time".

"No parent in our experience has ever declined this gift of life for their child," she said.

For now, cadaver skin is used only for life-saving procedures: if more of it were available, it would be used in other situations too. .

According to a report in the South African Medical Journal, at least 25 patients a month could benefit from the bank if enough donor skin was available.

Not all donated body parts can be banked like the skin.

This is because an organ transplant takes place after an individual has been declared brain dead but is still being supported on a respirator. Tissue retrieval - and this is what skin is regarded as - can take place hours, even days, after death.

A recipient will receive a donated organ soon after it has been removed from the donor, while tissue can be stored and used when needed.

Larisa Brodie of Somerset West, who supports organ donation, said: "My main, and very basic, reason for donating a body part would simply be that there is really no use in incinerating my body if some of my body parts could be used to prolong another person's life.

"I also kind of like the idea of my DNA being around in another living body instead of in a pile of ashes in a vase somewhere. The idea of my heart still beating to supply oxygen to another person's brain is also intriguing."

According to the Organ Donor Foundation of South Africa, an organ donor can save up to seven people's lives - heart, liver, pancreas, two kidneys and two lungs.

With tissue, you can help up to 50 people by donating corneas, skin, bone, tendons and heart valves.

farbert@sundaytimes.co.za