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Surgical instruments designed to rapidly excise (harvest) and/or process large, uniform-thickness skin slices. These instruments may be a manually operated device (e.g., a handheld mechanical frame and cutting blade) or, more frequently, a powered (e.g., electrical, pneumatic) device with a cutting blade. Powered (e.g., Castroviejo, Reese, Padgett-Hood, Brown, Davol-Simon, Zimmer) dermatomes typically use a rapidly oscillating blade that is manually advanced over the skin. Dermatomes are used mainly to obtain skin grafts from donor sites, but they are sometimes used in other procedures (e.g., to remove tattoos). Dedicated instruments are available to expand the skin graft (i.e., expanded mesh dermatomes), increasing the area of damaged skin that can be covered with a given graft.
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