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V - CARRIERS

Humeca introduces a new range of grooved skin graft carriers, called ‘V-carriers’.


The symmetric V-shaped groove pattern of these carriers prevents unwanted sideward movement during cutting. The standard length of these carriers is longer than the length of existing carriers and care has been taken to ensure that the groove pattern of the carriers connect to each other. This enables cutting of extra long graft stripes.

The V-carriers are available in versions that are compatible with Zimmer® meshers and versions that are compatible with Aesculap® / B.Braun® meshers. Of course both versions are suitable for use in the Humeca mesher. Available expansion ratios: 1:1, 1:1.5, 1:2 and 1:3.

The 1:1 carrier only perforates the graft without the intention of expanding it. This is to achieve sufficient drainage in full sheet grafts with hardly anygraft pattern resulting in final result).

This development work was supported by the Dutch Burns Research Institute and the Euro Skin Bank in Beverwijk, TheNetherlands. The 1:1 perforation V-carrier was developed and clinically tested in close co-operation with the University Hospital Gent, Belgium.


Working principle

Skin graft meshing is the term used for cutting slits into a sheet graft and stretching it open prior to transplantation. To obtain such slits, the graft is passed through a mechanical meshing instrument, called a mesher. Depending on the design of the mesher, different types of carriers are used on which the graft is placed before cutting. When the mesher is provided with interrupted blades, flat carriers are used and in some meshers no carrier is used at all. A well-known type of mesher (Zimmer, Aesculap/B.Braun) contains circular blades and requires the use of grooved plastic carriers. In such an instrument the blades are forced under pressure to ‘roll’ over the grooved carrier, thus cutting the graft only at locations where the blades contact the carrier (upper part of the grooves), while the graft is left undisturbed at locations where the blades do not contact the carrier (lower part of the grooves). The figure on the right shows where the slits in the graft will appear as a result of this principle. As shown, the length of the slits depends on the width of the upper part of the grooves and of the angle of the grooves. The longer the slits are, the larger the expansion ratio will be.

Technical data v-carriers

Humeca V-carriers are made of high quality medical grade polymer.
The material was chosen for its high flexibility, radiation resistance, translucency and hardness.
Dimensions      carriers (lengthxwidth): 280 x 78.8 mm.
Thickness         of V10 type carriers is 1.0 mm.
Thickness         of V15 type carriers is 1.5 mm.
Dimensions box of 10 pcs. (lxwxh): 400 x 120 x 25 mm.
Weights:
6.V10-1.0 thickness 1.0 mm and expansion ratio 1,     box 10 pcs.       434 g
6.V10-1.5 thickness 1.0 mm and expansion ratio 1.5,  box 10 pcs.       418 g
6.V10-2.0 thickness 1.0 mm and expansion ratio 2,     box 10 pcs.       423 g
6.V10-3.0 thickness 1.0 mm and expansion ratio 3,     box 10 pcs.       428 g
6.V15-1.0 thickness 1.5 mm and expansion ratio 1,     box 10 pcs.       526 g
6.V15-1.5 thickness 1.5 mm and expansion ratio 1.5,  box 10 pcs.       514 g
6.V15-3.0 thickness 1.5 mm and expansion ratio 3,     box 10 pcs.       520 g