Skin from an aborted foetus has been used to create skin grafts to treat eight children with deep second- and third-degree burns, Swiss scientists report today.

Patrick Hohfield and colleagues at the University Hospital of Lausanne report in the online edition of The Lancet that they have developed a "bank" of tissue from a small patch of skin taken after a terminated pregnancy, with the mother's consent.

This one donation, they write, could be used to grow several million sheets of skin, each measuring 9cm by 12cm, for burns treatment.

Skin grafts were first used in the second world war to repair fearsome injuries from burns, with uneven results.

So-called artificial or biological skin was developed a decade ago: one biotechnology firm in California has been growing huge sheets of human skin from fragments taken from the circumcision of Jewish boys.

But the Swiss team felt that foetal tissue might provide a high-quality skin that would treat wounds more swiftly and effectively.

They took eight children and placed patches of foetal skin tissue over wounds left by burns, and then bandaged them. They then changed the dressing every three to four days, for three weeks.

The wounds closed within a fortnight, and not one of the children needed treatment by traditional skin grafts because the foetal skin dressing alone closed their wounds.

"Foetal skin cells could have great potential in tissue engineering," said Prof Hohfield.