CLEVELAND, Ohio — For burn victims, one moment can change the rest of their lives.
Thanks to a new ‘game-changing’ technology, patients are on the road to a much smoother recovery.
Director of MetroHealth Medical Center’s Comprehensive Burn Center, Dr. Anjay Khandelwal, says burns are probably one of the most significant severe injuries that someone can sustain.
“It really affects a patient mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally and psychologically, it’s really a devastating injury,” he explains.
“Most of our patients when they come in they really just don’t grasp and can’t even begin to fathom what it’s like and what they’re going to go through.”
Dr. Khandelwal calls Recell technology game changing.
“This new technology that we have is basically spray on skin,” he says.
“That spray can cover up basically the entire arm and hand of a patient.
Dr. Khadelwal says doctors can take a credit card size piece of skin, which Is thinner than a sheet of paper, process that skin in the operating room and essentially turn it into a spray.
He explains it’s not complete coverage. With a skin graft for example, the spray on skin would be used to fill-in holes that are created when the skin is stretched, “with the spray on skin those holes in between they heel up much quicker, with better cosmetic results, better functional results,” he explains.
“All of this translates into the patient getting out of the hospital quicker, there’s less costs to the hospital and to society.”
So far about a dozen patients at MetroHealth have undergone this treatment.
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