TREATMENT OF SKIN DEFECTS USING SUSPENSIONS OF IN-VITRO CULTURED KERATINOCYTES

The in vitro cultivation of keratinocytes and their application in the form of confluent sheets to cover various kinds of skin defects invol ves a number of problematical steps which could be improved by using s ingle cell suspensions instead. Therefore we developed a method to app ly keratinocytes suspended as single cells in a fibrin gel. By testing the feasibility of this method in different experimental animal model s we found that it facilitates cultivation as well as application of t he cells, moreover, this method allows a much more flexible use of the cells, i.e. it is easier to consider the clinical condition of the pa tient than by the conventional method