[Skin transplantation or artificial skin replacement?].

The closure of big skin defects is still a problem. Autologous skin is not unlimitedly available. Different skin substitutes are invented and available. All of them are suffering one problem. They can only be used for temporary closure. Even the immunological progress can not solve the problem of skin shortage. An interesting artificial skin was designed by Burke and Yannas. They designed an artificial dermis consisting of bovine collagen and chondroitin-6-sulfate. This is a fascinating possibility for solving the skin shortage problem especially in burn cases. But even this dermis needs autologous epithelial cells to create a complete skin coverage. So till now a complete skin substitute without autologous material seems not to be available.