Extra Skin from Cosmetic Surgery benefits Transplant Foundation

Cool-lision (Credit: big-pao)

We came across this interesting article in the Herald Review.

Vicki Henderson was dissatisfied with her appearance after the delivery of her son by Caesarian section, so she decided to do something about it.

"I hated that roll," she said. "I had a roll. I don't now."

Henderson, 37, consulted Dr. Emmanuella Joseph, a cosmetic and restorative surgeon, to see what could help her achieve her desired look and decided on a tummy tuck. But Joseph had something to ask in return: that Henderson donate the skin removed during the procedure to the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation.

Patients such as Henderson who are undergoing cosmetic procedures to remove excess skin can not only reap the benefits of an appearance-changing procedure but help others in the process. After a half-hour phone interview with the foundation to determine her donor eligibility, all Henderson had to give was her consent and that unwanted skin.

"I could help anybody," Henderson said. "Male, female, child, infant - anybody."

Because the product prepared from these donations is a framework from which the skin's outer layer and cells are removed, any donor can give to any recipient.

"Underneath the very top layer, the epidermis, everyone has the same dermis, and it doesn't have any antigens on it, and you can't make antibodies to it," Joseph said. "So it makes the perfect grafting material that you can use without having to take immunosuppressive agents that are toxic."

Joseph has performed more than 20 procedures this year in which she has removed unwanted skin and sent it off to the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation, which prepares the skin, freezes it for storage and coordinates the donations.

Donated skin, which used to come from cadavers, has been available from living donors for about a year, Joseph said.

The foundation sent Henderson a card thanking her.

"Through your generous gift, others will enjoy a better quality of life," it read.

Joseph said the extra time she spends counseling patients about the donation process and seeing them through the screening process is well worth the help their donations can provide.

"Once they've decided (to have surgery), and they pick the surgery date, then we tell them, 'you may donate,' " Joseph said. "And we give them that option, and I think everyone has said yes."

Joseph said the stigma of cosmetic surgery has been reduced in recent years as shows such as Nip/Tuck, Dr. 90210 and Extreme Makeover have glamorized the procedures on the small screen.

"It's more socially acceptable, but there are still people who don't want other people to know," Joseph said. She added that skin donation, although it is not the reason her patients have surgery, is an added bonus that makes many feel proud.

"I've always used AlloDerm," Joseph said of her experience working with dermal matrix. "I started using it way back in my training for burn surgery, and I saw so much success with that with people who would have died otherwise getting new skin, and actually their scars looking much better because we used this AlloDerm skin."

Joseph said one of the product's most interesting properties is that it is a regenerative matrix, meaning it allows surrounding cells to be incorporated into it.

"If you did a hernia repair two years ago and you go back in and take a biopsy of where you put that AlloDerm from another person, it will have incorporated into the tissues, and it will turn into skeletal muscle," Joseph said. "If you put bony matrix around it, you can make bone, and it can really turn into anything."

Donated skin is also used for burn victims, and the top layer of their own skin is placed over it.

One other procedure revolutionized by dermal matrix donations is single-stage breast reconstruction. Without the donations, a patient's skin would need to be stretched by a tissue expander for a period of time in order to accommodate the implant inserted following a mastectomy. The single-stage procedure reduces scarring, spares patient tissue and eliminates the need for multiple surgeries.

"We've done a lot of them, and women are totally happy because that's one surgery instead of three or four," Joseph said.

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