A retrospective clinical study of 188 consecutive patients to examine the effectiveness of a biologically active cryopreserved human skin allograft (TheraSkin®) on the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers and venous leg ulcers.

A biologically active human skin allograft, currently distributed under the brand name TheraSkin(®), was examined for safety and efficacy in the treatment of venous leg ulcers (VLUs) and diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs). The objective was to determine if TheraSkin could serve as a safe and effective alternative to bioengineered skin substitutes such as Apligraf(®) and Dermagraft(®). The authors conducted a retrospective study of 214 consecutive patients seen at the Inova Wound Center (Mt Vernon, Virginia), with either a DFU or a VLU. After excluding patients who did not meet the study criteria, the final eligible cohort consisted of 188 subjects, with 134 VLUs and 54 DFUs. Multivariate logistic regression was used to evaluate the relationship between baseline wound size and the proportion of healed wounds after 12 and 20 weeks from initial allograft application. The authors found that by the 12th week, DFUs closed 60.38% of the time and VLUs closed 60.77% of the time. After 20 weeks, the number of closed DFUs increased to 74.1% and the number of VLUs increased to 74.6%. The mean wound size in the DFU group was 6.2 cm(2) (±11.8) and 11.8 cm(2) (±22.5) in the VLU group. The mean number of TheraSkin allografts required ranged from 1 to 8, with an average of 2.03 (±1.47) at the 12-week point and an average of 3.23 (±2.77) at the 20-week point. Multivariate logistic regression was used to calculate the odds of wound healing by week 12 and week 20 in each group. The authors also analyzed adverse events and found TheraSkin to be noncontributory to any adverse events, verifying the safety of TheraSkin in this study population. In this study, TheraSkin has been shown to be highly effective for the treatment of both VLUs and DFUs with an acceptable safety profile.