Harveylives
01-05-2004, 03:07 PM
Maggots clean up
January 3, 2004
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Maggots are being used as a treatment at a state-of-the-art Scottish hospital.
The larvae have been reintroduced at the £184 million ($436 million) New Edinburgh Royal Infirmary to treat wounds on patients with diabetes.
The maggots, used in medicine until the 20th century, eat dead flesh on dirty, infected lesions, leaving a clean wound that begins to heal, doctors said.
Matthew Young, a diabetes consultant, pioneered the renewed use of maggots at the diabetic foot clinic he runs at the hospital. "There are many ways to clean up dirty, infected wounds in situations where either surgery would be too difficult or too painful without an anaesthetic or too risky," he said. "They are often used in patients with either bad blood or who are older or frail to provide a more gentle and quicker way of cleaning up a wound."
A Welsh-based company realised the potential maggots still had as an alternative to traditional treatments and began marketing them as a clinical treatment. The firm delivers sterile maggots to hospitals within 24 hours at 50 per treatment. Patients are brought into hospital to have the maggots applied before being sent home for three days while the larvae perform their treatment. Most patients require two or three treatments before their wound is healed.
Press Association
I have seen this treatment on the discovery channel. Pretty cool, in a gross kind of way.
January 3, 2004
Print this article
Email to a friend
Maggots are being used as a treatment at a state-of-the-art Scottish hospital.
The larvae have been reintroduced at the £184 million ($436 million) New Edinburgh Royal Infirmary to treat wounds on patients with diabetes.
The maggots, used in medicine until the 20th century, eat dead flesh on dirty, infected lesions, leaving a clean wound that begins to heal, doctors said.
Matthew Young, a diabetes consultant, pioneered the renewed use of maggots at the diabetic foot clinic he runs at the hospital. "There are many ways to clean up dirty, infected wounds in situations where either surgery would be too difficult or too painful without an anaesthetic or too risky," he said. "They are often used in patients with either bad blood or who are older or frail to provide a more gentle and quicker way of cleaning up a wound."
A Welsh-based company realised the potential maggots still had as an alternative to traditional treatments and began marketing them as a clinical treatment. The firm delivers sterile maggots to hospitals within 24 hours at 50 per treatment. Patients are brought into hospital to have the maggots applied before being sent home for three days while the larvae perform their treatment. Most patients require two or three treatments before their wound is healed.
Press Association
I have seen this treatment on the discovery channel. Pretty cool, in a gross kind of way.