Effect of Cultured Dermal Substitute Composed of Collagen Sponge Seeded with Fibroblasts in Simultaneous Skin Graft Overlay

The study investigated the use of a collagen sponge seeded with fibroblasts for simultaneous skin graft overlay in a rat model. The results showed that while the overlaid split-thickness skin grafts (STSG) survived moderately, the addition of fibroblasts did not enhance the survival rate of the grafts. There were no significant differences in wound contraction and final wound epithelization between collagen sponges with and without fibroblasts. However, the fibroblast-seeded collagen sponges promoted significant re-epithelization along the junctional surface between the collagen sponge and the STSG, leading to the formation of epithelial inclusion cysts in the neo-dermis. This suggested that the seeded fibroblasts induced epithelial outgrowth, which could be beneficial for re-epithelization in certain types of simultaneous skin graft overlays, such as meshed STSG.