Comparative Study of Shrinkage in Human Skin, Artificial Human Skin, and Mouse Skin.

Introduction: The shrinkage of surgical specimens (SS) is known in human skin (HS) but has not been studied in an artificial skin (AS) or mouse skin (MS). Objectives: To quantify the degree of shrinkage of SS and establish its timing in HS and an in vitro and animal model to explore the possible causes of this phenomenon. Methodology: We collected 100 SS of HS, 50 SS of AS synthesized with fibrin-agarose biomaterials and 21 SS of MS. The width and length of specimens were measured before the surgical excision (pre-SE), at 5 minutes postsurgery (ex vivo), and after 24 hours of fixation in formalin (postfixation). Histological staining was performed to analyze the differences between HS, AS, and MS that may explain the differences in shrinkage. Results: Between pre-SE and postfixation, the width and length shrank by 16.1% and 17.1% in HS, 14.5% and 8.5% in AS, and 26.5% and 23.1% in MS (P

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