Tuesday, April 1, 2014

New Medical Device: Skin Cell Gun

It's not often that I'm impressed by new medical devices. Many times, they're just refined from old devices with a few new bells and whistles.

This might be different.

It is difficult to treat significant burns-- particularly when grafting the skin is required. There are few options available other than taking sheets of skin from the patient's own body or growing new skin cells on sheets which takes weeks. The problem with the wait time is that your skin is not only your largest organ but also your primary defense against infectious agents entering your body. This is often what burn patients die from-- infections while their wounds heal.

That might all change and change dramatically with The Skin Gun. They take the patient's own skin cells and grow them in a water solution and in a matter of hours grow enough to then spray the skin cells onto the injured area.

The video is impressive as the new skin doesn't even appear to scar down which is another nemesis of burn treatment, but I would like to see some before and after photos of the same patient for me to truly buy into the claimed results. However, if this process can do what they profess-- it will revolutionize care for burn patients.

Check out the video. What do you think?




2 comments:

  1. Really? I wish there had pictures of the actual patient before and after. Also, the doctor seems too much a character. But this makes sense and would be wonderful if true.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Me to, Mollie. I would have been more impressed to see before and after of the SAME patient or some other case studies. In light of this-- I have reserved optimism.

    ReplyDelete