Skin Substitutes; an Updated Review of Products from the year 1980 to 2017

Skin substitutes can help skin repair and regeneration, and restore the efficient properties of skin in the time of acute burn injuries or other chronic skin lesions. They have been beneficial for replacement or reconstruction of one or both layers of the skin and can act as permanent skin replacements or temporary wound covers, depending on their composition and design. There are many different classifications of currently available skin-substitutes and each of these has their own advantages and applications but none of them can fully simulate native skin yet.
Currently, accessible substitutes have several limitations such as infection, reduced vascularization and integration to host tissue. Also various cells responsible for temperature control and insulation, pigmentation, immune regulation and nerve supply are absent. Recent studies removed some obstacles but till date, no ideal skin substitute has been developed and further research will require to resolve different issues and suggest practical solutions toward a true and native-like skin substitute with excellent engraftment and durable viability.
In developing countries, availability and awareness of these skin substitutes is not adequate in spite of the number of cases that require this kind of treatment, therefore, it is needed to develop indigenous economical technology to promote available treatments in hope to achieving substitutes with higher quality and reasonable cost that could be available to a greater percentage of patients.