Fed: Scientists grow nipple-coloured skin in the lab

AAP General News (Australia)
04-08-2005
Fed: Scientists grow nipple-coloured skin in the lab

By Janelle Miles, National Medical Correspondent

BRISBANE, April 8 AAP - Australian scientists have grown nipple-coloured skin in a
laboratory which may one day improve the look of a woman's breast after reconstructive
surgery.

Recreating the nipple after a woman has had a mastectomy is problematic for surgeons
with the skin colour often fading within two years.

Current techniques include tattooing the area or using darker skin from the groin,
or the remaining breast.

"We've shown that the nipples do tend to fade over time and also with the technique
of taking the skin from the groin or the opposite nipple, that leaves you with another
scar which a lot of people don't want," said plastic surgery registrar Nicola Dean, who
helped grow the skin in the laboratory.

She found women and their partners were distressed by the fact that the reconstructed
nipple faded in colour over time, making it different to the other breast.

"We did a big survey before we started this research to find out whether there was
actually a market for it ... and certainly, a lot of people who've had breast reconstructions
do find that the nipple reconstruction isn't as satisfactory," Dr Dean said.

"They're worried about it."

Dr Dean, whose research was funded by the Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide,
used normal skin left over after people had undergone a breast reconstruction.

She separated the pigmented cells, known as melanocytes, from the other cells in the laboratory.

The researchers, whose work was published in the March edition of the British Journal
of Plastic Surgery, then artificially increased the number of melanocytes to non-pigmented
cells to create darker-coloured skin.

Dr Dean's technique uses the patient's own serum to promote cell division, reducing
the risk of infection.

"We had to use some growth factors to make the melanocytes grow but we tried to minimise
that more than any other method that's been described," she said.

The technique has not been tested on patients and Dr Dean admitted even minimal use
of growth factors would have to be carefully considered before clinical trials because
of the risk of transplanted cells becoming cancerous.

Flinders University associate head of health sciences Tim Neild, who was also involved
in the research, said the technique built on West Australian work using cultured cells
to help skin grow in burns patients.

He said until the new technique was trialled on humans, the researchers would not know
whether the nipple would fade as it did with current practices. But that may be some years
away with more work required in the laboratory.

AAP jhm/jt

KEYWORD: NIPPLES

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