Experience with the use of close-relative allograft for the management of extensive thermal injury in local national casualties during Operation Iraqi Freedom

Abstract

The care of host nation burn victims in Iraq and Afghanistan has been a significant challenge to US military healthcare providers. To provide burn care in an austere environment is more challenging by limitations in resources such as inadequate medical supplies, infection control issues, and a lack of blood or tissue banking capabilities. Large full thickness burns pose a significant obstacle due to limitations in the casualties' available donor skin, which can be used to achieve wound coverage. In US burn centers, allograft stored in skin banks provides temporary coverage during donor site healing in the management of large total body surface area burns. This report is a study of two severely burned Iraqi children with inadequate donor site surface area to achieve wound coverage that were managed with close-relative allograft harvested from their fathers to achieve temporary wound closure. A brief literature review and future recommendations are included.