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The transplantation of tissues can save lives and re-establish vital functions, where no alternatives of comparable effectiveness exist. This has led to establishment of tissue transplantation as a successful practice worldwide; however, a great variability between countries remains in terms of donation levels, safety, quality of grafts and their efficacy. Tissue transplantation requires coordination of different agencies involved in the implementation of procurement, processing, storage and distribution of tissues and cells from different hospital units that perform surgical procedures with graft-type input requirements. This biomaterial-like requirement has led to the constant development of the area and today these graft products of human origin can be the starting point for new and more advanced biotechnological products. For long-term sustainability and successful transplantation units, a process management comparable to the pharmaceutical industry in terms of quality management systems must be established to produce safe and high-quality human-derived products. This review aims to update the current concepts of tissue transplant services for its application for developing countries using the current Chilean scenario as a case study. We summarize our findings proposing a set of guidelines/actions that should be followed to ensure smooth tissue transplant services implementations with high efficiency and safe use.

The use of skin allografts to temporarily replace lost or damaged skin is practiced worldwide. Naturally occurring contamination can be present on skin or can be introduced at recovery or during processing. This contamination can pose a threat to allograft recipients. Bacterial culture and disinfection of allografts are mandated, but the specific practices and methodologies are not dictated by standards. A systematic review of literature from three databases found 12 research articles that evaluated bioburden reduction processes of skin grafts. The use of broad spectrum antibiotics and antifungal agents was the most frequently identified disinfection method reported demonstrating reductions in contamination rates. It was determined that the greatest reduction in the skin allograft contamination rates utilized 0.1 % peracetic acid or 25 kGy of gamma irradiation at lower temperatures. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10561-016-9569-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.