China Hospitals to Grow Skin for 2 Plane-Crash Survivors

A Chinese hospital is seeking international help in growing skin for two survivors of last month’s Yichun plane crash, reports China Daily. A female survivor had burns on 99% of her body. A male survivor was burned over 65% of his body.

Due to the degree of burns the patients could not be treated satisfactorily with the traditional autotransplantation technique of grafting of skin from other parts of the body to the burned areas, according to Prof. Wang Guosheng of the Harbin Medical University Hospital. Autotransplantation was impossible for the woman survivor. The man had undergone two autotransplant surgeries already.

The hospital hopes to use advanced stem cell transplantation (SCT) technology to grow skin. It has invited SCT experts from Harvard University, Australia’s Monash University, China’s Peking University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong to give remote consultations. If necessary experts from Beijing, Hong Kong, the U.S. and Australia will be invited to come to the hospital for direct consultation.

The August 24 crash killed 42 of the 96 people aboard the Brazilian-made Embraer jet and was the deadliest aviation accident in China since 2004.