Use of Acellular Fish Skin Graft to Speed Healing in Trauma Wounds

Background: Acellular fish skin is increasingly being used clinically as a readily safe and effective alternative tissue source for wound repair in non-healing ulcers of many etiologies. Current mammalian acellular dermal matrices raise concerns of the potential for autoimmune response, risk of prion diseases, and potential cultural or religious issues. The fish skin material has at least 2 fundamental differences from the other biologic materials on the market. First of which is no disease transmission risk exists from fish to humans. Secondly, the product contains fatty acids typically removed in processing of mammalian products. 

Earlier studies have shown that the fish skin graft is significantly faster in re-epithelializing full thickness acute wounds compared to extracellular matrix from porcine submucosa. When grafted, the acellular fish skin provides a natural structure to the wound bed that contains natural skin elements and bioactive lipids, which not only acts as a scaffold for revascularization and repopulation of the patients’ cells, but provides anti-inflammatory an antimicrobial properties as well.

Objective: This is a case series report of the author’s experience using the acellular fish skin graft to treat trauma wounds of the lower extremity.

Materials and Methods: All patients in the study suffered with trauma wounds of the lower extremity treated with the acellular fish skin graft using standard technique. Weekly wound measurements, photos and graft application was performed

Results: Patients in the study group all went on to complete healing without any reported adverse events or complications. All patients also related a substantial decrease in pain with the use of the fish skin graft.

Conclusions: In this case series use of the acellular fish skin improved patient healing in patients suffering from painful trauma wounds of the lower extremity.