Skin Grafts – A Faster Way to Heal Large Wounds

From time to time I’m called on to help with equine injuries that haven’t healed well. One method that has worked well on larger injuries is the skin graft.

Here’s a recent case to show you how this works, and what’s involved in this process.

Here we have a chronic wound on the lower limb. Previous treatment of this wound was unsuccessful.

Because of the size and slow progress we chose to perform a skin graft. The graft was taken from the chest, an area with looser skin.

The section below is closed to hide two photos of the skin graft, which some people might find a little gory.

Click if you want to see the photos, or skip down to the next images below.

Before we removed the skin from the chest, we clipped it to remove the hair. To make the graft, we start by removing any fat and subcutaneous tissues. Next, we cut some slits in it to expand the area the graft can cover and to allow fluids to drain. We’re making a scaffolding of skin tissues, where the healing can begin across the wound. The graft is prepared by soaking in a saline solution for two days.

We then do some surgery on the leg (not shown) to remove the poorly healing tissues and proud flesh that is on the old wound.

The cleaned-up wound is covered with antibiotics and bandaged.

Two days later, the skin graft is connected to the skin at the edges of the wound with – wait for it – super glue. We’re effectively making a living bandage, from the horse’s own tissues. We then cover the wound with a traditional bandage that protects the graft but won’t adhere to it.

The graft is left covered with the bandage undisturbed for a week.