A decree published in the Official Journal now regulates skin grafting between twins or monozygotic twins during their lifetime.
Published in Official newspaper, a decree now provides a legal framework for skin donation. “The skin is the only tissue that can be taken from a living person”, lays down the decree, before specifying: “the removal of the skin from a living donor can only be carried out on a major donor in order to transplant his monozygous twin for the treatment of lesion or burn, extensive and involving its vital prognosis “.
Types of fabrics
In 2017, the plastic and reconstructive surgery team of Prof. Maurice Mimoun and the anesthesia-resuscitation team of Prof. Alexandre Mebazaan from the Saint-Louis hospital in Paris succeeded an almost total skin graft between two monozygotic twins. The patient Franck Dufourmantelle had been 95% burned as a result of the explosion of a canister at his workplace. Transplants can involve organs (kidney, liver, heart, lung, etc.) or tissues (skin, corneas, bones, heart valves, tendons, etc.). Regarding tissue transplanted from a living donor, “nothing was explicitly written. It was necessary to specify which types of tissue could be concerned”, explains Professor Olivier Bastien, of the Biomedicine Agency.
The heaviest part of our body
The skin, weighing more than 4 kilos, is by far the largest and above all, the heaviest part of our body. We are always surprised that we have to think of the skin as an organ in its own right, but it is essential for life. Burned, even very partially, beyond 1/4, or covered for example with an airtight paint, we will die as certainly as being deprived of air.
The main role of the skin is to be our envelope. It protects the body against shocks, friction, external attacks, chemicals or microbes. But it is in fact a very complex organ which has several destinations: it regulates our temperature, in particular by fighting against the heat, thanks to the sweat, and against the cold, thanks to the hair and the fat it contains. The skin acts as an aid to respiration and excretion and can even produce a whole host of substances as essential as, for example, vitamin D, under the action of the sun. Fortunately, it is an organ which is not that fragile, because it is perfectly constituted. Almost 2 square meters of a vital adornment.
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