Soft tissue repair allografts and methods for preparing same

A method for making an allograft dermal tissue form, comprising the steps of:

• providing a donor tissue including skin having (a) an epidermis, (b) a dermis underlying the epidermis, the dermis including a papillary dermis adjacent the epidermis, a reticular dermis distal to the epidermis, and a papillary-reticular dermis interface PRI between the papillary dermis and reticular dermis, and (c) a dermis-epidermis junction between the papillary dermis and epidermis;
• and a hypodermis adipose tissue underlying the reticular dermis RD, distal to the papillary-reticular dermis interface;
• making a first cut into the reticular dermis at a first location distal the papillary-reticular dermis interface, and along a first plane substantially parallel to the papillary-reticular dermis interface;
• removing the hypodermis from the reticular dermis along the first cut to form a first exposed surface on a remaining portion of the donor tissue;
• making a second cut into the papillary dermis at a second location proximate the dermis-epidermis junction, and along a second plane substantially parallel to the papillary-reticular dermis interface and the first plane;
• removing the epidermis, dermis-epidermis junction and a portion of the papillary dermis from the remaining portion of the donor tissue to form a second exposed surface on a remaining portion of the dermis opposite the first exposed surface, wherein the first and second locations are selected such that the remaining portion of the dermis constitutes a collagen matrix having substantially uniform density and porosity between the first exposed surface and the second exposed surface.