How to improve donor skin availability: Pragmatic procedures to minimize the discard rate of cryopreserved allografts in skin banking

Microbial contamination of human skin allografts is a frequent cause allograft discard. Our purpose was to evaluate the discard rate bank contaminated and specific procedures used reduce without affecting safety. We conducted at Lille Tissue Bank retrospective study all deceased donors (n = 104) harvested from January 2018 December 2018. Skin procurement split into 3 zones: back body two legs that were processed separately. It represented 433 cryopreserved pouches approximatively 500 cm² each. Donors almost equally between brain-dead (53%, 55/104) cadaveric (47%, 49/104) donors. Out donors, 42 (40.5%) had least one sampling zone with positive microbiological test resulting in 106 (24%) pouches. The did not vary according or type donor. Traumatic deaths showed significantly less rates than other death types (p < 0.05). Contamination decreased time spent antibiotic solution. risk having five-fold higher when 96 h cocktail According our validation protocol, most (32/42, 76%) bacteria (mainly Staphylococcus spp) compatible clinical use. No recipient infection recorded as result graft saprophytic non-pathogenic germs. By harvesting separate zones per donor, total surface area for use increased by 53% Overall, proportion contamination-related discarded 3.2% (14/433 pouches). Few simple pragmatic measures (including incubation bath 4 °C, splitting areas minimize cross-infection germs) can