Skin Spray Heals Wounds
In January, Christin Lipinski, 37, developed flu-like symptoms and pain under her armpit. Doctors at Maricopa Integrated Health System – a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona – found she was infected with a vicious, flesh-eating strain of Streptococcus bacteria.
“When we took her to the operating room we realised it was worse than we thought,” says her treating doctor Kevin Foster. The bacteria had spread from her armpit down most of her left torso and arm.
To prevent further spread, Foster’s team cut away the infected tissue. “It was so deep we basically went down to muscle,” he says.
Normally, large skin wounds are patched up using skin grafts from another part of the body. But because Lipinski had already lost a third of her skin, she couldn’t afford to lose any more.
Running out of options, Foster decided to appeal to the FDA for compassionate use of an experimental skin spray called ReCell. The spray is currently being trialled as a treatment for severe burn wounds.
To make the spray, doctors take a small patch of skin from another part of the patient’s body. A special enzyme is used to break the tissue into individual skin cells, which are then sprayed in a fine mist over the wound.
To read the entire article and outcome of the sin spray click to the NewScientist.com