Development of a device for measuring adherence of skin grafts to the wound surface.
Adherence of a biological graft to the wound surface is the most important factor influencing the ultimate success of graft viability. A machine has been developed to test the adherence of biological graft materials to a substrate such as a wound surface. The peeling mode, which yields reproducible quantitative measurements of adherence, is a standard method for testing adhesives. The device is designed to continuously measure the force required to peel the graft from the substrate at a constant rate. This force is a function of the energy of adhesion per unit area of adhered surface. This device has been used to measure the peeling force of (2 x 2 cm) skin grafts which are applied to full-thickness wounds on mice. Results of tests on adherence of autografts on mice show that the peeling force increases significantly with time over the first 9 days of healing. Thus, this device is useful in quantitative comparison of various skin grafting techniques and artificial grafts.
Dong
C
C
Department of Applied Mechanics and Engineering Sciences, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla 92093-0412.
Mead
E
E
Skalak
R
R
Fung
Y C
YC
Debes
J C
JC
Zapata-Sirvent
R L
RL
Andree
C
C
Greenleaf
G
G
Cooper
M
M
Hansbrough
J F
JF
D000268:Adhesiveness; D000818:Animals; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008422:Materials Testing / Q000295:instrumentation*; D051379:Mice; D016038:Skin Transplantation / Q000592:standards*; D013997:Time Factors; D014945:Wound Healing; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*