Posted on 03/03/2017 11:02:31 AM PST by Gamecock
BRAZILIAN doctors are using the skin of a tropical fish to treat burn victims in a pioneering new therapy that is significantly reducing the trauma suffered by survivors.
It’s the first time in medical history that researchers have used the skin of an aquatic animal as a band aid to treat lesions.
When a gas cooker canister exploded in an accident at Maria Ines Candido da Silva’s workplace causing second degree burns to her arms, neck and some of her face, doctors offered an alternative therapy to the conventional ointment-based one – to dress her wounds with the skin of a Tilapia fish.
Maria Ines, 36, who worked as a waitress in the Casa Velha restaurant in Russas, north east Brazil, said: “The explosion left me with horrific injuries.
“I was in absolute agony and desperate for anything to ease my suffering.
“When doctors suggested putting fish skin on my wounds I found the idea really strange.
“But I jumped at the chance because they said it would be far less painful than the normal treatment and easier to manage.”
She said living day-to-day with fish skin on her body was “a really bizarre experience”.
“I felt like I was in a sci-fi-movie when the Tilapia fish skin was being put on,” the mother-of-two, said.
“At first the fish skin felt really cold but within minutes of it being laid on, I didn’t feel any more pain and it felt cool and comforting.”
She added: “I was really surprised and grateful that it didn’t smell either.”
The innovative biological dressing has been developed by a team of researchers led by Dr Odrico Moraes, Prof Elisabete Moraes and Dr Ana Paula Negreiros over more than two years at the Nucleus of Research and Development of Medicines (NPDM) of the Federal University of Ceará (UFC).
Plastic surgeons Dr Edmar Maciel at the Dr. José Frota Institute Burns Unit (IJF) in Fortaleza and Dr Marcelo Borges, at the São Marcos Hospital SOS Burns and Wounds Unit in Recife, north east Brazil are coordinators of the project.
The radical procedure completed the first pilot project trials on some 50 patients this month.
The Tilapia skin was left on Maria Ines’s left arm, neck and face for 11 days before being removed.
Doctors kept the fish skin on her left hand for longer as these wounds were deeper.
Over the course of 20 days the fish strips on her hand were replaced several times to allow more time to restore the damaged tissue.
The former-waitress visited outpatients every two days during this time to check her bandages were intact.
Doctor’s removed the fish skin using petroleum jelly to lift, slide and ease the dressing away from the healed area.
The fish strips form a mould over the wound and almost appear as if they are part of the body.
Tilapia was chosen because it’s one of the most common freshwater, disease-resistant fish found in Brazil.
According to suppliers, the popular fish which is mass produced in farms, is filleted for dining tables with 99 per cent of the skin thrown in the bin and one percent used for making arts and crafts products.
The discarded fish skin, donated for free, is now being used by researchers in the project.
Analysis of the Tilapia skin revealed it contains optimum levels of collagen type one and high degrees of humidity, so it takes a long time to dry out.
These are important characteristics known for speeding up the healing of burns and for providing patients with essential proteins.
Dr Maciel, who is also president of the Burns Support Institute, said: "We discovered the Tilapia fish skin performs significantly better in the healing process by soothing and curing severe wounds caused by burns.
"The skin triggers healing in roughly the same amount of time as the topical creams that we currently use in the conventional treatment.
“But the benefits of this alternative technique include reducing the trauma and pain suffered by patients because their dressing does not have to be changed daily.
"With the traditional treatment, it does.”
The fish skin also minimises the loss of liquids, plasma and protein from the injured area and drastically cuts down the risk of infection.
And it’s far cheaper to work with.
Before the temporary fishy dressing is used, researchers put the skin through a rigorous curing, decontamination, cooling and preservation process that removes scales, muscle tissue, toxins and any possibility of transmitted diseases.
It also gets rid of the fishy smell.
The cured skin is stretched and laminated then stored in refrigerated banks based in Sao Paulo, in strips of 10cm by 20cm for up to two years.
The aquatic dressing’s tensile strength is similar to human skin and remains flexible and easy to mould around a wound.
The Tilapia stays in place, covered with external bandages, for between seven to 11 days before being removed.
Treatment for burn victims in the South American country currently involves using sulphur sulphadiazine, a substance that heals wounds within 14 days, on average.
Dressings and bandages must be changed daily to keep the wounds clean and the patient has to take an anaesthetic shower using anti-bacterial soap.
The wound emits an offensive odour after 24 hours if this isn’t done.
Sufferers frequently take additional painkillers to cope with the trauma of the procedure and the stress can interfere with the healing process.
Maria Inês was one of the first patients to be treated in October this year with the Tilapia fish skin procedure as part of the pilot project at the IJF Burns Unit.
She said: “Nurses used creams when I first arrived.
"I was in excruciating pain already and some of my wounds were really deep.
“When they put the creams into my wounds it was like I was being tortured and the touch of the water to shower it off caused so much pain.”
Maria Ines said the Tilapa fish skin treatment felt futuristic as if it was from a "sci-fi movie".
“I loved the treatment and would recommend it to anyone who has suffered like me,” she said.
Burn survivors do not need to take painkillers with this ground-breaking therapy and the fish skin is said to reduce anticipated healing times by one to two days.
Maria Ines revealed she is nearly 100 percent better as the fish dressing made a huge difference to her recovery.
Brazil does not use animal skins from pigs and dogs for treating wounds.
It has three human skin banks that serve one percent of its 200 million population.
Dr Borges explained: “This new Tilapia dressing is cheap and easy to sustain unlike the expensive human skin banks that countries like ours have difficulty funding and maintaining.
“We’ve been working on this project for over two years and believe we can look forward to a time when this low-cost viable healing aid will be used to make a radical difference to thousands of burn victims in developing and poor countries, saving time, medication costs and hours of pain.”
Next year, researchers at the Fortaleza-based IJF Burns Unit plan to expand the trial project to hospitals across the country and treat a further 500 patients before officially launching the innovative Tilapia fish skin procedure worldwide.
The only side effect is that she smells fishy.
So will her skin always look like that, or will that fall off when new skin ultimately regenerates?
Not new. One of my daughter’s classmates has a large patch of shark skin grafted to her leg. Pretty cool!
I will tell you what works for cooking burns..probably not as bad as this, though.
I have had some really bad burns.
Baking soda mixed with water to form a paste. Keep applying.
I had one so bad I had to spend all night with various methods..I tried them all interchanged..mustard, ..lavender oil..aloe leaves, etc
You can’t even tell I had a burn 6 months later
But for most cooking burns doing the baking soda will work.
It’s like a bandage. It comes off.
The only side effect is that she smells fishy.
...
Humor. But the article says the skin is treated and has no smell.
Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn?
Becoming a deep one?
Looks no different than a tattooed person.
So instead of shaving her legs, she’s going to have to descale them?
Baking soda mixed with water into a paste is what my mom used
to apply to our mosquito bites when I was a little kid.
It worked.
They won’t itch at all after about 15 minutes.
I could have sworn that the sign was advertising how much per pound.
of course doing absolutely nothing the itching stops after about 15 minutes.
“...for between seven to 11 days...”
This has nothing to do with the topic but it bugs me no end. When will writers figure out that proper grammar is an important part of their job? Seven to ten days is a range of time. How can something be between a range? It makes no sense at all and yet I see/hear news writers and TV reporters use it all the time.
Janet Tappin Coelho @ The Sun, I’m talking to You!
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