Since the burn damage was nearly down to the man's bone, a skin graft would be unsuccessful. The skin graft would have no blood supply, and die. Therefore, doctors tried the uncommon (yet not new), approach to place the damaged body part under his abdominal tissue. The abdominal tissue "sticks" to the hand and provide blood supply.
This type of technique is used increasingly in laboratories: incubation of lab-grown body parts from scaffolding.
The patient's hand was initially expected to be amputated. Now, he is expected to make a full recovery and experience minimal complications.
Source:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/sci-fi-surgery-places-man-hand-stomach-article-1.2346017
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ReplyDeleteYou beat me to this post!!! I showed my roommate the pictures and he got white in the face. haha I thought this was incredible. The procedure makes sense to me. The gentleman in this article had burns on his hand so severe that his natural ability to heal was overrun. By placing his hand within the layers of his skin his destroyed tissue would have all of the essential blood flow, immune cells and nutrients to effectively be repaired. This "Sci-Fi" procedure saved this man's hand and will allow him to retain an exceptional quality of life for the rest of his life. Were you able to find any pictures of the burns prior to the surgery? I was only able to find pictures during and post surgery.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if this has to do anything with the body to maintain homeostasis. The body is always growing new cells and undergoing program cell death. Would just placing the severe burn hand under the abdominal vascular supply automatically tell leukocytes or other immune cells to start tissue repair.
ReplyDeleteDylan, I wasn't able to find the pictures pre-surgery either. It is definitely a really cool method. Thanks to the surgeon thinking outside the box, this patient certainly benefited!
ReplyDeleteMinh, that is a good point. Based on what we have recently learned in anatomy class, I would assume it would work something like this:
As we know, angiogenesis is when endothelium bud off from established vessels to reach other organs/structures. I imagine the body would utilize angiogenesis to supply the hand with blood supply, and bud new vessels on the damaged hand. In addition, we know that angiogenesis is directed by angiogenic factors that attract the endothelium. Perhaps the scaffolding they use contains some synthetic form of angiogenic factors? It would be interesting to find out.