Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
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Situations where normal autografts cannot be used to replace damaged skin often lead to a greater risk of mortality, prolonged hospital stay and increased expenditure for the National Health Service. There is a substantial need for tissue-engineered skin bioconstructs and research is active in this field. ⋯ The aim of this review is to describe those materials already commercially available for clinical use as well as to give a short insight to those under development. It seeks to provide skin scientists/tissue engineers with the information required to not only develop in vitro models of skin, but to move closer to achieving the ultimate goal of an off-the-shelf, complete full-thickness skin replacement.
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Respiratory infections can be spread via 'contact' with droplets from expiratory activities such as talking, coughing and sneezing, and also from aerosol-generating clinical procedures. Droplet sizes predominately determine the times they can remain airborne, the possibility of spread of infectious diseases and thus the strategies for controlling the infections. While significant inconsistencies exist between the existing measured data on respiratory droplets generated during expiratory activities, a food dye was used in the mouth during measurements of large droplets, which made the expiratory activities 'unnatural'. ⋯ Considerable subject variability was observed and the average size of droplets captured using glass slides and microscope was about 50-100 microm. Smaller droplets were also detected by the aerosol spectrometer. More droplets seemed to be generated when a food dye was used.