Father donates skin graft to son whose entire body was burned
The house fire killed a 15-month-old girl and left her 2-year-old brother with 80% burns, including almost all of his skin. The father donated his skin to save his son's life.
Two months ago, when Mr. Long and his wife (living in Tuy Duc district, Dak Nong) went to work in the rubber garden, they left their two children, Nam (2 years old) and Na (15 months old), to play inside the house.
At noon, relatives discovered that Mr. Long's house was on fire. Unable to escape the fire, both children suffered severe burns. Na later died and Nam suffered burns to 80% of his body.
The baby was treated intensively at Children's Hospital 2 and has overcome the critical stage due to burn shock and infection.
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| The patient after receiving skin graft from his father. |
However, the baby suffered 2nd-3rd degree burns, almost all of the body's skin was burned (80% of the skin area). If there is no appropriate treatment to cover this damaged skin area, the possibility of the baby dying from infection, poisoning and exhaustion due to loss of body fluids is very high.
According to the doctor, the remaining skin area on the baby's body is too small, not enough to take the baby's own skin to graft onto the burned skin. Skin grafting from a relative is the best solution at the present time.
The Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Burns of Cho Ray Hospital was invited to consult and evaluate the patient's condition for skin graft surgery.
The surgical team took thin skin from Mr. Long's thighs, flattened it, and grafted it onto the baby's head, face, neck, chest, arms, and thighs.
The baby is now stable, the bandage change shows that the skin graft has adhered and survived on the head, face and neck, and on some parts of the limbs the skin is peeling but still creating conditions for the underlying tissue to heal well.
Dr. Ngo Duc Hiep, Head of the Burn and Plastic Surgery Department at Cho Ray Hospital, assessed that skin grafting is not a very difficult surgery with a high success rate, but that is for adults, and this is the first allograft performed on children.
In addition to surgical expertise, there are also issues of anesthesia in adults and children, legal issues between the boards of directors of the two hospitals, and coordination between doctors and nurses.
Dr. Hiep hopes that the success of this surgery will be a premise for other cases requiring skin grafts in the future, if any. That is the wish of the doctors of the two hospitals, and that children with severe burns will have more treatment opportunities to recover sooner.
