Skin allograft procurement and transplantation in Mashhad, Iran: Are burn patients' needs being met?

Only a single donor's tissue may save or improve lives of one hundred patients. Unfortunately, low governmental and media support of tissue procurement and transplantation programs is a worldwide problem. Loss of an effective tissue procurement program in many countries like Iran, may lead to loss of many thousands valuable tissues each year. To evaluate the rate of skin donation in Mashhad in comparison to other organs and tissues, we extracted the data related to tissue and organ procurement in Mashhad from 2001. Then we evaluated the annual skin allograft needs in the Burn Department of Imam Reza Hospital as the only referral burn center in the northeast of Iran. Brain dead potential donation rate per million populations of Mashhad in the years 2007-2014 was about 33. The mean refusal rate was 51%. Of patients who have consent for donation, more than 86% have consent for skin donation. Skin allograft procured from 119 (35.5%) candidates. Average of skin retrieval per cadaveric was 1525 cm with a gradual increase from 1400 cm in the first year to 1800 cm in the last year. The recipient to donor ratio was 1.14. It is estimated that about 1 cm of skin allograft is needed for any cm burnt body surface area. Considering more than 700 acute burn hospitalization in our burn unit, the patients need for skin allograft would be more than 3.5 million cm, annually. The annual amount of skin procurement in Mashhad has been currently about 20,000 cm. It shows that our patients demand is higher than supply. Skin procurement and transplantation is a simple procedure which can be as lifesaving as organ procurement and transplantation. But there isn't any national organization to regulate tissue procurement, banking and transplantation. Governmental support of skin procurement and transplantation programs especially nonprofit programs may improve skin procurement rate and save more lives of severely burnt patients.