Mitchell Nash¹, Prof. Andrew Holland² Prof. John Harvey³

1 Burn Fellow Westmead Children’s Hospital Sydney, Westmead, NSW, 2145, mitchellnash@gmail.com
2 Prof. of Paediatric Surgery, Children’s Hospital Sydney, Westmead, NSW, 2145, Andrew.Holland@health.nsw.gov.au
3 Head of Burns Unit, Children’s Hospital Sydney, Westmead, NSW, 2145, John.Harvey@health.nsw.gov.au

We present a case study of a 70% Full thickness flame burn in an 8 year old boy which was treated with Meek grafting. Cicero Meek introduced Meek grafting in South Carolina in 1948, however this technique was rendered obsolete by mesh grafting until improvements in intensive care treatment of burns resulted in increased survival of larger burn wounds. This technique was then modified and reintroduced in the Netherlands in the early nineties and is now in widespread use across Europe and America. It allows small amounts of skin to be expanded up to 9:1 ratios and easily handled and applied to the debrided burn wound. However, it is labour intensive, time consuming and has significant consumables and equipment costs. Using this case study we explore the number of procedures, length of operations, team required, cost effectiveness and the 6 month outcome after meek grafting for this patient.

Key Words

Meek grafting, Paediatric Burn

Biography

Burns Registrar at Royal North Shore Hospital Sydney. Previous experience at Concord Burns Unit and Westmead Children’s Burns Unit.