Grafting of venous leg ulcers. An intraindividual comparison between cultured skin equivalents and full-thickness skin punch grafts.

Skin equivalents that consisted of a noncontracted collagen gel populated with allogeneic fibroblasts and covered with autologous cultured keratinocytes were used for grafting venous leg ulcers. The results were compared in the same patient with those obtained with a routinely used standard method of grafting with autologous full-thickness punch grafts. The skin equivalents and the punch grafts were grafted successfully in four of five patients. The median healing time of ulcers grafted with skin equivalents was 18 days whereas that of ulcers covered with punch grafts was 15 days. The cosmetic appearance of the skin equivalent-grafted ulcers was better than that of the punch-grafted ulcers.