A review of keratinocyte delivery to the wound bed.

Over the last 20 years, confluent sheets of cultured epithelial autograft have been used for patients with major burns. Problems with the lack of "take" and long-term durability, as well as the time delay to produce such grafts, have led to the development of delivery systems to transfer keratinocytes to the wound bed. This review article describes the problems of using cultured epithelial autograft and the advantages of using preconfluent keratinocytes. Despite the numerous delivery systems that have been reported, most studies are limited to animal wound bed models. There are a few small clinical studies that have demonstrated enhanced healing using mainly subjective methods. There is a need for controlled, randomized clinical trials to prove the efficacy of keratinocyte delivery systems. Proposals for the use of this technology are made.