Bolstering Split-Thickness Skin Grafting with Autologous Skin Cell Suspension (ASCS)
Summary: A poster presented at SAWC Fall 2025 reports that adding **autologous skin cell suspension (ASCS)** to split-thickness skin grafts (STSG) enables robust wound closure in complex lower-extremity wounds, even when using extremely small donor sites.
Key Highlights:
- A retrospective review of 21 patients with chronic, complex wounds—including diabetic foot ulcers, venous leg ulcers, and ischemic wounds—found that STSG augmented with ASCS achieved complete closure in all cases within an average of 38.7 days. (Kazu Suzuki, DPM, lead author)
- This technique uses just a 1–2 cm² donor skin sample to prepare ASCS, which is then sprayed over the meshed graft to enhance epithelial coverage.
- Wound sizes averaged 121.5 cm², with chronicity averaging 284 days—yet closure rates reached up to 95% within 5 weeks.
- Compared to traditional STSGs, the ASCS-enhanced method delivered more rapid, durable healing without increasing risk, adding only approximately 12 minutes of processing time.
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Keywords:
autologous skin cell suspension (ASCS),
split-thickness skin graft (STSG),
diabetic foot ulcer,
chronic wounds,
Kazu Suzuki