Burns patients to benefit from Queensland’s new skin bank

The State Government is establishing a Queensland Skin Bank to ensure adequate local supplies of life-saving skin tissue for burns patients and victims of civil emergencies.

Health Minister Stephen Robertson said today the Bligh Government is investing more than $1.4 million to establish the Queensland Skin Bank and the Queensland Skin Culture Centre.

“Burns victims and patients with chronic, hard-to-heal wounds will benefit from having a locally-based supply of allograft and cultured skin in Brisbane,” he said.

“Each year up to 50 people with severe burns are treated in Queensland as well as patients with chronic wounds that require skin grafts.

“The Australian Red Cross Blood Service operated a skin bank service in Queensland between 1996-2003 in conjunction with the Royal Brisbane Hospital Foundation.

“Since then, Queensland has had to import skin from Australia’s only skin bank in Victoria, or from overseas, which has proved costly and unreliable.

“Having a reliable local supply of skin will provide a lifeboat for sick burns patients in whom skin substitutes have failed and wound infection threatens their life,” he said.

“It will assist in improving patient recovery time as well as reducing pain and suffering, scarring and infection rates.

“Importantly, it will ensure Queensland Health has a banked supply of skin available to respond in the event of a natural disaster, major industrial accident or terrorism incident.”

Mr Robertson said the skin bank will be divided into two services: one to grow “cultured” skin from patient skin samples; the other to store “allograft” skin from deceased tissue donors.

Cultured allogenic skin will be grown by the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital Burns Unit for the Queensland Skin Culture Centre based at the Herston hospital campus.

Donated allograft skin will be stored at the Queensland Skin Bank based at the new Queensland Transplant Tissue Service facility at Coopers Plains.

Mr Robertson said currently the only source of allograft skin in Australia is the Donor Tissue Bank of Victoria, which is not capable of providing a consistent or sufficient supply of skin to meet Queensland’s needs.

“Allograft skin is considered the gold standard technique for burn wound management and is useful for the treatment of large scale burns while improving patient recovery time and reducing scarring and infection rates.

“Local supplies of allograft skin will enable doctors to treat severe burn patients with real skin instead of skin substitute products which don’t offer the same level of clinical outcome and are generally more expensive.

“Cultured skin can be used for patients with small or moderate burns who require multiple treatments and may also assist patients with chronic long-term wounds like diabetic foot ulcers.

“The Queensland Skin Bank and the Queensland Skin Culture Centre will be operational by 2008.

“Together, these two new facilities will provide highly valuable and potentially life-saving treatment to burns patients within Queensland,” he said.


26 December,  2007

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