Posts Tagged ‘burns’
Brain-Scanning "Painometer" Is an Attempt to Measure Pain Objectively
A new, very early version of a "painometer" is being tested at Stanford. The tests are actually sort of medieval-sounding, but to test pain, you've got to inflict pain. Subjects were touched with a heat probe (on the arm, people) and the ensuing brain signals were measured. Those measurements were used to create an algorithm that, the researchers hoped, would be able to indicate pain.
The algorithm does work, though not perfectly; the current accuracy rating is around 81%, which is plenty to show that it works but also not nearly high enough to actually rely on. The other major problem is the relative lack of understanding we have about the nature of pain: this test, says Sean Mackey, an associate professor and member of this project's team, only measures "thermal pain" in a lab setting, and "We should take care not to extrapolate these findings to say we can measure and detect pain in all circumstances."
Still, it's a major step forward to creating a real, objective pain sensor, which could have some pretty major effects on diagnostic medicine, as well as helping those who are too young, too old, or otherwise unable to properly communicate their degree of pain. Then we can get back to making pain medicine out of and .
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Texas Man Receives First American Full-Face Transplant
Dallas Wiens suffered horrific burns in a 2008 accident
Wiens received a nose, lips, facial skin, muscles and nerves from a donor, who was not named. The procedure involved more than 30 doctors, nurses and anesthesiologists, the hospital said. It was the country’s first complete facial transplant; two other procedures were considered “partial” transplants.
Wiens was using a cherry-picker lift in November 2008 to paint a church when he hit a power line. The live electrical wire essentially burned off his face, leaving him blind and without a nose or lips. He was in a coma for three months, and although doctors were able to graft skin from his back and thighs onto his head, they could not reconstruct his face.
In a , he spoke about why he wanted to receive a face transplant, and how he wanted to smile again and feel kisses from his 3-year-old daughter, Scarlette.
Last week’s procedure was almost exactly a year to the date of the world’s , which restored facial features to a Spanish man who accidentally shot himself in the face. In 2009, Brigham and Women’s Hospital surgeons performed a partial transplant on , who was disfigured in a subway accident. In 2008, the Cleveland Clinic transplanted 80 percent of the face of , who was shot in the face in 2004.
Wiens was working as an independent contractor at the time and didn’t have health insurance. Medicaid covered about two dozen surgeries before dropping him from their rolls. The Defense Department underwrote his surgery, hoping to advance face transplant techniques that could help injured warfighters.
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Inkjet Cell Fabricator Prints Healing Flesh Directly Onto Wounds
The device itself consists of a tank holding a mixture of harvested skin cells, stem cells, and nutrients, and a computer-controlled nozzle that places the cells exactly where they need to go. The spray works similar to a color printer, first spraying down a layer of fibroblast skin cells as a substrate, and then blasting on a layer of protective keratinocyte cells. Both sprays also contain a slurry of some undeveloped skin cells.
In initial tests on wounded lab mice, burns treated with the cell printer healed in two weeks, compared with the usual five weeks skin grafts take to heal. Additionally, the mice with the printed-on skin showed less scarring and more hair regeneration, as the sprayed-on stem cells better incorporated themselves into all the various cell types of the burned flesh.
Successful mouse tests have driven the Wake Forest scientists onward to tests with pigs, whose skin more closely resembles that of humans. After the tests with pigs conclude, the doctors can finally move on to human trials, and eventual FDA approval. Additionally, the Wake Forest team is working with the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine to utilize this technology on the battlefield, to print shut bullet wounds and blast damage.
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