Stem Cells: Healing Your Own Wounds?
Reported August 26, 2011
MIAMI, Fla. (Ivanhoe newswire) — The skin is the largest organ in the body with amazing healing powers, but what if your wounds didnt heal? Thats the case for 6 million Americans suffering from chronic wounds that can take months or even years to heal. Millions have no other choice besides amputation. Now, a new stem cell therapy is helping change that.
Spending time with her grandchildren hasnt been easy for Karen Marshall.
I have had so many times that Ive been down because of infection, and that takes a while to clear up and everything, Marshall told Ivanhoe.
Doctors diagnosed Marshall with CREST syndrome 10 years ago. Its an autoimmune disorder that makes it difficult for her to heal. A paper cut took her nine months to close up. A deep leg wound took five years. After a MRSA infection exposed her tendons around her ankles, doctors made a recommendation
They say you can just continue doing what youre doing forever and ever or cut it off, Marshall said. I wouldnt accept it.
Instead, she found Evangelos Badiavas, Ph.D., M.D., associate professor of Dermatology & Cutaneous Surgery from the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He enrolled her in a study that takes stem cells from a patients own body and uses them to treat their stubborn wounds.
We have had patients who have not healed for more than 10 years and achieved full healing, Dr. Badiavas explained to Ivanhoe.
The cells are applied directly to the skin and injected locally.
The very bright green areas are bone marrow cells that are entering into the wounded area, and theyre incorporating into the muscle tissue as you can see right here overlying some of the muscle, Dr. Badiavas told Ivanhoe.
The hope is to achieve complete regeneration of the tissue.
I dont feel like Im going to be like this forever, Marshall told Ivanhoe.
The process could take more than a year.
Researchers at the University of Miami are still actively recruiting for this study. Patients usually require between four and 16 treatments over the course of six months. Another trial is also being planned to test the use of donor bone marrow stem cells on patients with chronic wounds whose own stem cells have been compromised.