Comment by ChicagoBoy11
9 years ago
I saw this news when it first broke in Brazil, and the one thing that I still haven't fully understood is just what benefit the Tilapia skin is actually offering.
When I read up on it, it seems that it goes through several different aggressive sterilization and processing stages before they are given to the patient. With all this processing, isn't the tilapia skin at that point just a gimmick?
From the article, it appears they're after the high levels of collagen (for repair), the tensile properties (for holding the wound together) and the physical barrier (for protection). I'm guessing those are unaffected by their sterilization techniques as they are using radiation.
The biggest benefit I see that it offers is that it doesn't need to be changed daily and can stay on for the course of the treatment. That's a huge benefit saving patients a lot of pain.
Another thing is that when the bandages are replaced, it tears off bits of new skin that have started to grow.
I know a girl that had 3rd degree burns on ~85-90% of her body. The doctors said she'd die, but her family brought in some people that applied sterile honey and a certain type of leaf over her entire body, which was far more gentle than the bandages. It was one of the fastest recoveries doctors had seen.
The constant care and timely honey and leaf replacement probably played a large part to the speedy recovery, but there's a point to be made that the standard methods for treating burns seem almost backwards as it doesn't promote skin growth as much as protection from infection.
I'm not a doctor though, so maybe someone else has more input on this.
Sterilization just means "the process of making something free from bacteria or other living microorganisms", the only "processing" besides that is adding glycerol which is a lubricant/moisturizer, perhaps also helps to "glue" it all up. At the end it is still raw fish skin being implanted over healing wounds, it just needs to be clean as heck because healing wounds are very pron to acute infections (and the worst of them require the amputation of the limb).