A new study just published on Feb 2011 in the journal of cancer makes a strong argument for applying hyperbaric oxygenation therapy (HBOT) for those patients who have had either surgery or radiation therapy for brain tumors. The study followed patients who had been treated with HBOT and there was a marked improvement in cognitive [...]
» Click Here to Read the full ArticleStem Cells, Hyperbaric Chambers and Diabetes
March 29, 2009
Diabetes Hope - Successful Pilot Study of Immature Adult Stem Cells
(ChattahBox)-A recent study published in the Journal of Cell Transplantation, offers new hope to the 24 million people in the US who suffer from type 2 diabetes and its harmful effects. The University of Miami Diabetes Research Institute, is conducting its first phase of human clinical trials, using immature adult stem cells from a patient’s own bone marrow. After treatment, symptoms significantly lessened, with increased insulin production, lower blood-sugar levels and a reduced need for those dreaded insulin injections. University researchers conducted the successful pilot study with 25 sufferers of type 2 diabetes. Once they removed the stem cells from the patient’s bone marrow, it was purified and concentrated, and then injected into arteries near the pancreas. The pancreas is responsible for producing the insulin our bodies need. The next phase of the novel treatment is right out of science fiction. The patients were enclosed in hyperbaric oxygen capsules for 10 hours, blasting their bodies with pure oxygen, at more than twice the amount of normal levels. The hyperbaric chambers are similar to ones used to treat divers with the “bends.” Researchers found that the high levels of pure oxygen drew additional stem cells from the bone marrow, which joined up with the new cells injected near the pancreas, renewing the pancreas’ ability to make insulin on its own. Research director, Dr. Camillo Ricordi, believes this groundbreaking new treatment could eventually lead to wiping out type 2 diabetes. At the very least, it can ease the painful symptoms and the serious complications of type 2 diabetes. The University of Miami is expanding its study to the countries of Argentina, Sweden and research centers in Asia. Over the next four years of further clinical trials, researchers are hopeful of obtaining FDA approval to offer the experimental treatment to more patients.
Hyperbaric center treats tough-to-heal wounds
Jan. 31, 2009 by Luci Scott; The Arizona Republic
Billie Waring of Chandler broke a glass in her kitchen, and when she cleaned it up, she overlooked a piece. She stepped on the wayward fragment and the wound failed to heal, a common problem for diabetics like her. The injury landed Waring in the Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Oxygen Center at Chandler Regional Medical Center. For two hours a day, five days a week, she lies in a chamber in 100 percent oxygen under high pressure, which stimulates healing. The center provided 1,500 treatments last year. Patients are mainly from the southeast Valley, but they have also arrived from Scottsdale, Globe, Green Valley and Prescott. The length of treatment varies, but the average patient takes 30 treatments. Chandler’s center is the only one in Arizona and one of 24 in the United States to receive accreditation with distinction, which signifies the highest quality of care. Accreditation indicates high standards in staffing, training, quality of care, and installation and safe operation of equipment. The center just won accreditation with distinction from the Undersea & Hyperbaric Medical Society, an international, non-profit organization serving more than 2,000 members from more than 50 countries. Navy divers: Years ago, hyperbaric treatment began with Navy and commercial divers who were underwater too long and developed nitrogen bubbles in their blood. They were put in pressure chambers to dissolve the nitrogen bubbles. That’s why sessions in the chambers are still called “dives.” The high pressure with the high oxygen level increase the oxygen dissolved in the blood, said Dr. Brian Paterick, the hyperbaric medical director. “That gets to all of your body, but primarily to wounds that have an oxygen deficit.” Most oxygen is carried by hemoglobin in the blood, but the blood also contains dissolved oxygen, which is maximized by treatment with 100 percent oxygen and high pressure. The oxygen in the chamber is five times the amount in normal air, which is 21 percent oxygen. The high pressure ranges from 2 to 2 1/2 times the pressure at sea level. Two atmospheres are equal to 33 feet below sea level, and the maximum pressure is equal to 50 feet below sea level. An estimated 800 to 900 hyperbaric centers exist in the U.S., including at least 100 not affiliated with hospitals. “The concerning thing (about the freestanding centers) is that when you move out from under the hospital environment, there are no staffing or training standards maintained by anyone,” said Tom Workman, a society executive. “It’s literally the Wild West of care.” Some freestanding centers may not be supervised by physicians and may claim to help people with cerebral palsy, strokes and “all sorts of stuff for which there are not proven clinical indications at this time,” Paterick said. Accreditation is a voluntary process, but Paterick predicts that in the future, it will be required by Medicare. The Chandler center: The Chandler wound center opened in spring 2003 and began hyperbaric treatments a year later. It is managed by Florida-based National Healing Corp., which partners with hospitals throughout the nation. The company has more than 150 wound centers in the United States. At Chandler’s center, patients arrive with a variety of ailments. About 50 percent are people with diabetic ulcers, Paterick said. Thirty percent are treated for radiation injuries suffered in treatment for head and neck cancers or prostate cancer. The remaining 20 percent have other problems, including bone infections, vascular injuries and failed skin grafts. Healing a foot or leg wound can prevent amputation. Six to eight patients are treated a day, the first one at 5 a.m. “We try to accommodate the patients who work,” center director Terri Harris said. “A lot of these people are in their 40s and starting to have complications. . . . We try to be very sensitive and work within their daily living activities and enhance their quality of life.” Occasionally, patients who are claustrophobic receive anti-anxiety medication. At the beginning of a dive, patients may feel pressure similar to being in an airplane cabin that is being pressurized. “My ears pop like when I’m driving in the mountains,” Waring said. She passes the time by watching DVDs on a television above the chamber that pipes in sound. She recently enjoyed 101 Dalmatians. Chandler’s center heals more than 93 percent of wounds in 16 weeks. “It’s always nice to see good outcomes,” Paterick said. “When somebody’s wound heals, they’re always grateful and sometimes they send letters and gifts.” For information about accreditation: www.uhms.org
Local clinics using hyperbaric chambers
3/8/2009 by KIM ARCHER World Staff Writer
One looks like a white submarine ready to dive into the depths, with a small circular port window to peer out on an imaginary sea. The other one — not so much. They are both hyperbaric oxygen chambers, and true to their U.S. Navy roots, time spent in one is called “a dive.” Even the pressurization inside is measured by depths of the sea. Two local clinics have hyperbaric chambers that are used to aid in healing wounds: St. John Medical Center and OSU Medical Center. “It forces oxygen into malfunctioning limbs. For diabetic wounds and wounds in general, it can start building new blood vessels in that area,” said Dr. Gerald Wootan of Jenks Health Team, 715 W. Main St. At a price of at least $400 per dive, hyperbaric oxygen therapy can be expensive. But for a diabetic seeking to ward off amputation of a limb, a 40-dive protocol can save money and a limb, Wootan said. “The cost is about one-fourth of what a diabetic would pay for an amputation surgery and hospitalization,” he said.
Stem Cells and Oxygen Therapy Show Promise In Treating Diabetes
13 Mar 2009
The growing epidemic of diabetes in the United States is making it crucial for scientists to find new ways to treat the debilitating disease and its numerous complications. New research just published by investigators from the Diabetes Research Institute (DRI) at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and Stem Cell Argentina in Buenos Aires shows that a novel protocol involving stem cells and oxygen therapy yielded promising results in a pilot study. The findings were published online March 11 in Cell Transplantation – The Regenerative Medicine Journal. In the phase 1 pilot study, 25 patients with type 2 diabetes received autologous stem cells that were infused in the blood vessels that go to the pancreas. The patients also underwent hyperbaric oxygen treatment before and after the stem cell infusions. In type 2 diabetes, the insulin that is produced by the beta cells in the pancreas does not work properly in the body because of insulin resistance or decreased sensitivity to the action of insulin, often combined with a reduced secretion of insulin by the pancreas. In contrast, in type 1 diabetes almost all of the beta cells have been destroyed and generally no insulin is produced. The objective of the study was to determine if using a patient’s own stem cells together with oxygen therapies would aid in the recovery of the damaged beta cells. “These preliminary results indicated that the combination of intrapancreatic delivery of autologous stem cells and peri transplant hyperbaric oxygen treatments significantly improved insulin production, glucose levels, metabolic control and dramatically reduced the requirements for exogenous insulin injections.” explains Camillo Ricordi, M.D., director of the Cell Transplant Center and the Diabetes Research Institute. Given the results of the pilot study, researchers at the DRI have recently launched an FDA-approved clinical trial to test the protocol in additional patients. Researchers will be recruiting patients between the ages of 45 and 65 who have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes after age 40 and have had the disease for more than five but less than 15 years. The trial participants will be randomized to either standard drug treatment for type 2 diabetes, or to undergo a series of treatments in a hyperbaric chamber at the University of Miami Hospital. During the treatment in a pressurized chamber the patient will be breathing 100 percent oxygen. Among other effects, it’s believed the high oxygen levels release stem cells from the bone marrow and allow them to circulate through the entire body. “After 10 oxygen treatments, we will do a bone marrow tap and prepare the cells for re-infusion directly into the pancreas,” explains Rodolfo Alejandro, M.D., professor of medicine and director of the clinical islet cell program at the DRI. “Basically we are taking a two-pronged approach: allowing more stem cells to be released into the body through the oxygen treatments, and then infusing the stem cells directly into the pancreas.” Following the infusion, the patients will receive an additional 10 treatments in the hyperbaric chamber. “Applying this combined approach we will determine whether the combination of hyperbaric oxygen treatment and stem cell infusion can help the pancreas to either recover or function well enough to allow patients to significantly decrease or stop their medications,” said Alejandro. “This intervention could alter the disease process in type 2 diabetes, giving the pancreas a chance to recover and possibly regenerate.” “Similar trials will take place in Europe, Asia, and Latin America as part of the DRI Federation collaborative efforts (www.diabetesresearch.org),” adds Ricordi. “The DRI at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine will be the only site performing this particular protocol in the United States. If the initial encouraging results are confirmed in patients with Type 2 diabetes, similar trials will be planned for patients with Type 1 diabetes.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy: Relief for diabetic foot ulcers
Wed, 02/11/2009 by Dr Kevin Chan
Diabetes mellitus is one of the most common chronic illnesses in the developed world today and has a worldwide prevalence estimated at 2.8 percent. A study by the World Health Organization in 2000 showed that at least 171 million people globally suffer from diabetes. Its incidence is increasing rapidly and it is estimated to reach 5.6 percent by 2030. Diabetes mellitus, often referred to simply as diabetes, is a long-term illness characterized by a high sugar level in the blood. Someone with diabetes is either not producing enough insulin (type 1) or is unable to effectively utilize the insulin produced (type 2). The incidence of diabetes (especially type 2) is more common in developed countries, with the greatest increase in prevalence expected to occur in Asia and Africa. Diabetes is one of the top 10 chronic diseases worldwide and if not managed properly, it will deteriorate steadily causing complications such as blindness, nerve damage, kidney failure, heart disease and limb amputation. Studies show that diabetic foot ulcers affect 15 percent of all people with diabetes and the most debilitating complication of diabetes would be amputation. Foot ulcers precede approximately 85 percent of all major amputations of the lower limb. And within a year of amputation, approximately 9 to 20 percent of all people with diabetes would have to undergo a second amputation. The effects of amputation, subsequent costly physical and mental rehabilitation and fast spiraling healthcare costs would further contribute to patients’ distress. For a long time, the mainstays of treatment for patients with lower limb ulcers have been surgical debridement and wound dressing. This leads to the ever-present danger of nonhealing wounds as most diabetic patients have very poor blood supply because of greater incidence of peripheral vascular disease extremities, even after debridement. Poor blood supply means no matter how many antibiotics are prescribed, the tissue concentration of these expensive antibiotic cocktails rarely reaches therapeutic levels. Mixed with decreased sensation to the feet, dry and fissured skin, and a generally depressed immune system, and you have a festering ulcer waiting to happen. In preventing an escalating number of people with diabetes and the fact that amputations and chronic wound care push up the burden on our healthcare costs, it becomes clear that hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is the one of the ways to combat the disease. HBOT is hardly a new invention. It has been in use since 1943, when it was adopted by the United States Navy for the treatment of decompression sickness, or the “bends “as the illness is more commonly known. Over the past 50 years, hyperbaric medicine has come into its own, with increasingly sophisticated trials and more. Conditions that seem to benefit from HBOT have increased tenfold. The Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, the governing body of hyperbaric medicine, has approved HBOT for the treatment of 13 selected conditions: air or gas embolism; decompression sickness; carbon monoxide poisoning; clostridial myositis and myonecrosis (gas gangrene); crush injury, compartment syndrome and other acute traumatic ischemia; enhancement of healing in selected wound problems; exceptional blood loss; intracranial abscess; necrotizing soft tissues infections; osteomyelistis (refractory); delayed radiation injury; skin grafts and flaps; and thermal burns. So what exactly is HBOT? Dr Kevin U. Chan, director/medical director of the Hyberbaric & Occupational Medicine Pte Ltd and Flinders Practice Pte Ltd explains: “Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy is simply the administration of pure oxygen to the patient in a pressurized environment (greater than 1 atmosphere). Due to the gas dynamics of a pressurized environment, the amount of oxygen dissolving into the plasma has increased by almost 400 percent. In short, there is a quantum leap in the amount of oxygen reaching the tissues. “The sum total of the increase in tissue oxygenation is to combat the chronic hypoxia (low oxygen levels) that is all too common in diabetic foot infections. Furthermore, bacteria, which thrive in an oxygen poor environment, are destroyed by the tidal wave of oxygen that seems to occur with HBOT. Increased oxygen levels in the local tissue also seem to promote the effects of administered antibiotics,” he elaborates. In short, HBOT seems to have a plethora of beneficial effects on local tissues and makes a definite impact on decreasing the risk of amputation and increasing the rates of wound healing. This has been proven by a number of international trials in the past eight years. Currently, HBOT is in its infancy in Singapore. The Hyperbaric & Occupational Medicine Pte Ltd, which began operation in late 2007, houses the largest walk-in-tri-compartment Multiplace Chamber in Southeast Asia. Dr Chan believes that HBOT plays an important role in both primary treatment and supportive treatment for the management of various conditions. As a primary treatment, HBOT is used to treat diving accidents such as decompression sickness and arterial gas embolism, and it also works best as a supportive treatment when used in combination with surgical debridement and wound care assisted by a dedicated health care team. He adds, “Its advantages are that the effects of existing treatments provide beneficial effects to wound healing. It is noninvasive, and causes minimal discomfort to the patient. This makes it very suitable for a wide spectrum of patients including the young and the old.” Put simply, HBOT seems to provide a noninvasive, effective way to treat chronic foot and other nonhealing wounds. While the jury is out on the long-term verdict and larger scale HBOT trials are underway, there is clear evidence that HBOT does improve the healing of wounds and provides a welcome ray of hope to people with diabetes worldwide. The Hyperbaric & Occupational Medicine Pte Ltd and Flinders Practice Pte Ltd are located in Singapore’s CBD, which is easily accessible by public transport
Hyperbaric oxygen clinics speed healing process
Nov 19, 2008; By Melissa Westphal
Troy Smith was apprehensive about being enclosed in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. But the diabetes-related treatment is beginning to ease his mind and his pain. Smith, 48, of Rockford completed his second treatment Tuesday at SwedishAmerican Health System, which started seeing patients in October. SwedishAmerican is the second organization in town to offer hyperbaric oxygen treatment; the three-chamber Rockford Hyperbaric Healing Center opened in September 2006. OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center opened its Wound Healing Center in October and saw its first hyperbaric patient last week. Health experts say there is a growing need for the treatment because obesity-related complications, such as diabetes, means more patients will develop chronic, nonhealing wounds that could benefit from the treatment. Its popularity is growing because more insurance plans cover it. Jose Perez, 46, of Roscoe completed his 12th treatment Tuesday. His diabetes-related wounds required three amputations on his left foot — exactly what medical officials hope to avoid, said Dr. LeRoy Bach, medical director for the SwedishAmerican clinic. Hyperbaric oxygen treatments have been around since the 1800s and were first used for divers with decompression sickness. That same technology is being applied to brain injuries, diabetic wounds, radiation tissue damage and many other disorders. During a typical session, a patient breathes in 100 percent oxygen to improve circulation and fight infections, allowing chronic wounds to heal faster. Sessions typically last 90 to 120 minutes, and patients receive the treatments five days a week for an average of 20 to 40 sessions. Insurance coverage reduces the out-of-pocket expenses, but the treatments are still expensive: A week’s worth of sessions can cost about $1,300.
Oxygen therapy treats diabetic ulcers, tissue damage
Monday, March 17, 2008 By Thom Gabrukiewicz
INSIDE PATIENT: Dr. Jerry Nystrom watches the movie, “Inside Man,” during a recent two-hour treatment inside a hyperbaric chamber at Shasta Regional Medical Center in Redding. The retired optometrist was getting the oxygen treatment to speed the healing of a diabetic ulcer on the bottom of his right foot. Sixty-four-year-old Judy Berg has been down for a dive — 60 of them, actually — but didn’t dip so much as a toe in the water. She even got to nap and watch a little television. The Lake Shastina resident was a patient at Shasta Regional Medical Center’s Center for Wound Care and Hyperbaric Medicine last fall. Five times a week for 12 weeks, she was sealed in an acrylic tube — think of one of those things banks use at drive-through tellers, but large enough to fit a whole person — and inhaled 100 percent oxygen for two hours at a time. The dives, she said, helped save her foot. “I’m a diabetic, and I had an infected blister that just wouldn’t heal,” Berg said. “One doctor wanted to amputate. I am walking, in regular shoes, fully healed and doing beautifully. “I think it’s amazing,” Berg said. The “it” is hyperbaric oxygen therapy, or HBOT. The air we all breathe contains about 21 percent oxygen. But with HBOT, the patient is saturated with pure oxygen — and has the added benefit of being compressed to one atmosphere of pressure. “Basically, it’s the equivalent of scuba diving,” said Becky Harper, a HBOT technician. “So we call it diving. When the patient is in the chamber, it’s like being 33 feet under saltwater.” Without actually being underwater. SRMC has used HBOT in its Center for Wound Care since July. The hospital has three of the units, made by Perry Baromedical of Riviera Beach, Fla. Mercy Medical Center in Redding plans on opening its own wound-care unit in July, according to Mercy spokesman Michael Burke. Hyperbaric therapy has been around in various forms since 1662 and has been used clinically since the 1800s. Most notably, hyperbaric chambers have been used by the U.S. military to treat decompression sickness, or the bends, in deep-sea divers. And while hucksters across time have claimed increased oxygen could treat everything from male-pattern baldness, anti-aging and even creaky backs, there is proof that the treatment works for certain ailments. SRMC’s unit typically treats patients with diabetic ulcers, skin graphs and flaps that won’t heal and tissue damage from radiation treatments. “For adjunctive care, it’s another tool in the tool in the toolbox,” said Dr. Andrew Knapp, medical director for the center. “It’s new to Redding and only certain wounds will work. But it’s been an invaluable resource, a nice application to chronic wounds that will not heal.” The unit, Knapp said, has experienced healing rates in excess of 89 percent since the wound center opened more than three years ago. “It seems like a good idea to me,” said Dr. Jerry Nystrom, a retired optometrist who completed his fourth week of dives Friday for a diabetic ulcer on the bottom of his right foot. “It saturates the blood with oxygen, which speeds healing.” Nystrom, a diabetic for 40 years, received a double organ transplant — kidney and pancreas — on Christmas Day 2005. “While not a diabetic now (the pancreas produces insulin and regulated blood sugar), I still have some of the problems associated with it,” he said. “It started out as a blister after walking across the UC Berkeley campus last fall.” With 20 treatments completed, the wound is healing nicely, Nystrom said. In HBOT, oxygen levels in blood plasma can increase 10 to 20 times than what is normal, Knapp said. And with increased oxygen levels reaching damaged tissue, it helps stimulate the healing process. The therapy can even increase the migration of white blood cells to fight infection and can cause the proliferation of fibroblasts, which help manufacture new tissue, according to the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, which since 1967 has exchanged data and helped oversee the ethical practice of hyperbaric medicine. There can be side affects, Harper said, but they are generally mild. There’s barotrauma, which begins as the pressure you feel in your ears when you’re in an aircraft. Some people also can get a little claustrophobic in the chamber. “Oh, it’s quite relaxing, actually,” said Berg, who completed her HBOT therapy just before Christmas. “Very comfortable. They taught me to clear my ears on the way down — it’s just like driving down the mountain — and I found swallowing and just yawning worked for me.” “I’m a big guy and claustrophobic to begin with,” Nystrom said. “It wasn’t bad. You watch videos. I was pleasantly surprised.”
UNC researchers work to save limbs
Jun. 26, 2008
Chapel Hill, N.C. — About 3,000 people, most of them diabetic, lose their leg annually in North Carolina. UNC Hospital researchers, though, hope that their work might help save more limbs and lives. Diabetes can lead to poor blood flow in feet and to nerve damage. Peggy Watson, 61, a diabetes patient, can attest to the dangers those conditions pose. “I could step on anything really, a rock or anything, and it wouldn’t really hurt,” Watson said. Although she didn’t feel any pain, those missteps could leave behind dry, cracked skin – and a slow-healing wound. Dr. Bill Marston, a vascular surgeon at UNC Hospitals, said doctors aim to get diabetics’ wounds to heal “rapidly, because as long as there’s an open wound, there’s a chance of infection, and that’s what really leads to limb loss.” Watson comes for hyperbaric-oxygen treatment at UNC’s wound-care center. The high-pressure chamber helps improve oxygen flow to her wound and, thus, promotes healing. “I’d say it’s about 75 percent healed from where we started,” Marston said. To help more diabetes patients, Marston has started work on the MATRIX trial, taking place at 25 medical centers nationwide. The trial enrolled patients who have been diagnosed with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, who have non-healing foot ulcers and who have have failed standard care. The patients get the gel Excellerate applied to their foot wounds. The gel contains a gene to stimulate tissue growth factors. “They bring the cells in that start to heal. And they cause them to lay down new collagen and things that support healing,” Marston said. The healing process is also stimulated by a good oxygen supply, such as that provided by a hyperbaric chamber. So far, the results of the trial have been promising, Marston said. Watson said she has learned to watch more closely eye for the first sign of new foot ulcers. “You really have to take of yourself when you have diabetes, because so many complications can come from it,” Watson said.
Therapy Helps Leg Wounds Heal
12/22/2008 By KIM ARCHER
The 78-year-old man cried after a persistent wound on his left leg healed in only two months. It was the only leg he had left. His right leg had been amputated below the knee, said Dr. Lam Le, the medical director of the St. John Wound Center, 4538 S. Harvard Ave. “He said: ‘This is exactly how the other side started. What if I had met you earlier? I might still have my other leg,’” she recalled. Gloria Clark, 63, has similar emotions about her leg wound. After 10 months of dressing changes and another type of treatment, the thigh-to-ankle wound would not heal. “I just get emotional when I think about it,” the Sand Springs woman said. Last December, she had an emergency quadruple heart bypass surgery. Surgeons took a vein from her right leg to repair her heart. The wound it left on her leg just would not heal. Clark’s primary care physician referred her to Dr. Le. Unlike the 78-year-old man, Clark is receiving hyperbaric oxygen chamber therapy. Le expects Clark’s leg to be completely healed by the new year. “My goodness, it’s pretty amazing,” Clark said. mSt. John Wound Center recently installed the first two computer-controlled hyperbaric chambers in Oklahoma. The wound center is one of two in Tulsa. The other is at Oklahoma State University Medical Center. Hyperbaric chambers administer pure oxygen under increased atmospheric pressure. They allow more oxygen to be diffused into an individual’s blood, activating white blood cells and promoting healing of chronic wounds, she said. Clark undergoes daily two-hour treatments in the hyperbaric chamber, excluding weekends. “It’s not uncomfortable. The first and last 15 minutes, my ears kind of pop like when you’re in an airplane,” she said. “But I watch TV and listen to music.” Clark has not stopped any of her activities because of her wound. She spent weekends recently hammering nails and painting a Habitat for Humanity house. “Over the last year, I spent a great deal of time changing dressings. I changed them twice a day,” she said. “What it means to me is I’ll get back some time.” Le said wound care is important to avoid complications, such as infection or amputations. “The quicker your wound heals, the less complications you’re going to have,” she said. The wound center’s most frequent patients are diabetics or people with chronic venous disease, Le said. But anyone with a non-healing wound is welcome at the wound center, she said. Although patients are free to call the center, Le prefers referrals from their primary physicians. “The patient has a wound that’s not healing for a reason. We treat the whole patient, not just the wound,” she said. For information or to find out about treatment, call the wound center at 712-3373.
Oxygen therapy may prevent diabetics losing limbs
16. July 2009
Researchers say on a daily basis around 275 Australians develop type 2 diabetes and worldwide, every 30 seconds a person somewhere has a lower limb amputated because of diabetic foot disease. Scientists at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) say new research they have conducted suggests that oxygen treatment could prevent this from happening as the oxygen may help diabetics heal. An international team of researchers led by mathematicians at QUT’s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation at Kelvin Grove, modelled the use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) – HBOT is when the body is intermittently exposed to pure oxygen under pressure in order to heal the chronic wounds that lead to the need for amputation. QUT mathematician Jennifer Flegg says a small cut on the foot of a diabetic can have catastrophic effects because their wounds do not heal the same way as normal wounds because of many factors including reduced blood flow. Mrs Flegg says their modelling showed that HBOT applied intermittently under pressure to a diabetic wound speeds up the healing but only HBOT, and not oxygen applied with no extra pressure, stimulates healing of these chronic wounds. She says they also found that HBOT must be continued until the wound has completely healed in order for it to be effective and individual wounds need to be treated differently. Mrs Flegg says each patient has different healing capacities with HBOT and their modelling shows that there should be a research focus on individual treatment protocols in order to optimize the outcome for each patient. An article on the research by Mrs Flegg, Professor Ian Turner and Emeritus Professor Sean McElwain from QUT and Professor Helen Byrne from the Centre for Mathematical Medicine and Biology at the University of Nottingham will be published in the Public Library of Science (PLoS): Computational Biology.
Oxygen may help diabetics heal
Friday, 17 July 2009 BY Queensland University of Technology
Oxygen treatment could prevent one person losing a leg to diabetic food disease every 30 seconds, the new research suggests. Every 30 seconds a person somewhere in the world loses a lower limb to amputation due to diabetic foot disease. In Australia about 275 people develop diabetes type-2 every day, and so the work of a team of mathematicians at QUT holds hope for the healing of these debilitating wounds that plague people with diabetes. A QUT-led team of international researchers from the Institute of Health and Biomedical innovation at Kelvin Grove has modelled the use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), which is the intermittent exposure of the body to pure oxygen under pressure, to heal the chronic wounds that lead to the need for amputation. QUT mathematician Jennifer Flegg said a small cut on the foot of a diabetic could have catastrophic effects because their wounds did not heal the same way as normal wounds because of many factors including reduced blood flow. “The investigation showed that HBOT applied intermittently under pressure to a diabetic wound speeds up its healing,” Mrs Flegg said. “Our modelling showed firstly that only HBOT, and not oxygen applied with no extra pressure, stimulates healing of these chronic wounds. “We also found that HBOT must be continued until the wound has completely healed in order for it to be effective. “However, we found that individual wounds need to be treated differently. “Each patient has different healing capacities with HBOT and so our modelling shows that there should be a research focus on individual treatment protocols in order to optimize the outcome for each patient.” An article on these findings by Mrs Flegg, Professor Ian Turner and Emeritus Professor Sean McElwain from QUT and Professor Helen Byrne from the Centre for Mathematical Medicine and Biology at the University of Nottingham will be published in the Public Library of Science (PLoS): Computational Biology, the top-ranked journal in the field of mathematical and computational biology. It is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal focusing on research of exceptional significance that furthers our understanding of living systems through the application of computational methods.
