HEALTH ISSUE: 'Miracle dust'
Monday, May 3, 2010
'Miracle dust' can save injured
limbs from amputation
The powder, made from pig bladders, can repair limbs in weeks, The Pentagon is investing million of dollars in the research, hoping that it will be possible to grow entire limbs
London: Scientists have developed a "miracle" powder nicknamed 'pixie dust' which they claim is being used to successfully treat the limbs of slodiers injured in Afghanistan.
A team at the Centre of Regenerative Medicine in Pittsburgh has made the power out of pig bladders. It helps the body grow hew tissue and can regenerate large areas which have been destroyed. Pig bladders contain a substance called extra cellular matrix, which is made up largely of collagen.
Plastic surgeon Steve Wolf, chief of clinical trials at the American Army's Institute for Surgical Research in Texas, has used the "Pixie dust" to treat several soldiers whose limbs were so badly damaged that they would ordinarily have been amputated.
One of the first to be treated was 25-year-old marine Corporal Isaias Hernandez, whose leg was so severely damaged by a mortar round that amputation seemed likely. A devastating crater-like wound in his thigh went sown to the bone, with a huge amount of muscle and tissue blown away.
Wolf operated upon him, placing sheets made of the cellular matrix into the wound. Over several weeks new tissue formed -- until the wound was filled. The "Pixie dust" had helped create new tissue, including nerves and muscle, and Corporal Hernandez can now walk on the leg.
He said: "Within a few weeks of the operation I was doing things I hadn't done for months. It was so quick that you could almost see it growing and filling the hole where I was blasted. The extra cellular membrance has not only made muscle but also built nerves."
The Pentagon is investing millions of dollars in the research, hoping that it will be possible to grow entire limbs "We're some way off from that but that would be our eventual aim," Wolf said.
0 comments:
Post a Comment