Spray-on skin is a skin culturing treatment for

burn A burn is an injury to skin, or other tissues, caused by heat, electricity, chemicals, friction, or ionizing radiation (such as sunburn, caused by ultraviolet radiation). Most burns are due to heat from hot fluids (called scalding), soli ...

, or other skin damage victims. It involves taking small samples of the patient's skin and spraying them on the wound.

History

The treatment was developed by Marie Stoner and plastic surgeon Fiona Wood. Their technique worked quicker than previous skin culturing techniques. Wood established the company Avita Medical in 1993 to commercialise the procedure. After the

2002 Bali bombings The 2002 Bali bombings were a series of terrorist attacks on 12 October 2002 in the tourist district of Kuta on the Indonesian island of Bali. The attacks killed 202 people (including 88 Australians, 38 Indonesians, 23 Britons, and people ...

, Wood used the experimental technology on victims before it had been subjected to proper clinical trials, garnering criticism from other burn specialists since at the time there was little evidence of its efficacy, and Wood had an apparent conflict of interest since she founded the company that sold the technology. A 2006

clinical trial Clinical trials are prospective biomedical or behavioral research studies on human subject research, human participants designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions, including new treatments (such as novel v ...

in US attracted only small numbers of participants and was suspended by Avita. Clinical trials commenced again in 2010 with the assistance of a grant from the US Army. Participant rates for the new trial were again lower than expected. The technology is currently approved for use in Australia, Europe, Britain and North America.

References

{{reflist Australian inventions Plastic surgery Skin Transplantation medicine