Laura Sudarsky, MD, FACS, Board Certified Plastic Surgeon & Wound Care Specialist at Esse Plastic Surgery talks about the “magic powder” that heals wounds.
Interview conducted by Ivanhoe Broadcast News in October 2018.
Talk to me a little bit about the work you do, you are working a lot with wounds and wound care.
Dr. Sudarsky: Yes. I’m a plastic surgeon, and I specialize in breast reconstruction but also in wound care. I have my boards in wound care and my title is a CWSP, certified wound specialist physician.
How prevalent is this issue. In other words when we go in surgery we go in for certain even cosmetic procedures, medical procedure and also if we have conditions diabetes how prevalent are wounds, how serious a problem can it be?
Dr. Sudarsky: I think in today’s day and age wound care and wound problems have almost become an epidemic. We have wound care centers that are opening up all over the country. Every block has a new wound care center. I think that our lifestyle has changed and people with diabetes, people who are smoking more, people have radiation for a postoperative care for cancer. All these issues create wound care complications and wound healing problems. In addition, surgery can also create a wound healing problem. Burn, anywhere you look from top to bottom of the body you can find a complex wound care issue.
What are the dangers, of wounds not healing especially certainly in cases, younger patients older patients?
Dr. Sudarsky: Wound curing problems can be awful. First of all, it can become a toilet problem if you have drainage if it smells you have issues of trying to keep yourself clean. A chronic wound can turn in to a cancer if it’s not been healed or if it’s not been properly taken care of the chronic inflammation can cause a malignancy. In addition, it can become an embarrassment if you go out and you’re draining and your wound is open. They’re also extremely painful and in the wound care world or in the opioid epidemic world it can create people that are not dependent on opioids for wound care pain.
Up to this point really there has not been a simple solution for wound healing, wound care.
Dr. Sudarsky: Well, wound care is very complex it comes in all different shapes and sizes. Industry has exploded with different treatments for wounds and wound education. So, because it’s complicated and because it extends along all parts of life I think that it becomes a very difficult problem.
Now in your own practice what has come on the market and tell me the name of the product and then we’ll talk about what it does.
Dr. Sudarsky: Well as a plastic surgeon we work from head to toe. So, I deal with wounds from head to toe, and we have been really lucky that in March of two thousand eighteen a product known as XCelliStem has come in to the market. What it is is a powder. It’s a powder that acts almost like a magnet. You put the powder on a wound, and it will introduce stem cells in to the wound and allow the wounds to heal with their own natural tissue. So as I said, as a plastic surgeon we can start in the head and work down. It can be helpful for wound care after a car accident, lacerations where you have lost soft tissue, maybe even and eyebrow. Let’s say your face went through a windshield, God forbid, and now you have a hole in the eyebrow and you need to have an eyebrow to regenerate. You can put the XCelliStem in to the eyebrow area and hope that the wound will heal with hair bairing tissue. For face cancer, such as most cancer and most reconstruction, we have been able to use it under a skin graft or instead of a skin graft to promote wound healing. As far as the arms and hands go if you have a tendon injury you don’t want to have that tendon exposed to the outside world it’s painful, it causes scarring, it reduces mobility XCelliStem has been helpful there. My specialty breast reconstruction and breast surgery unfortunately we see a lot of wounds secondary to radiation or from surgery. Sometimes the complications of my own and rather than have the whole soft tissue and the breast fall apart I’ve been lucky to be able to use the XCelliStem to promote wound healing and prevent catastrophic complications.
And really in your own practice with your friend and partner you were able to offer that to her when she was dealing with a very severe wound after breast cancer surgery and reconstruction.
Dr. Sudarsky: Yes. When we deal with breast cancer and reconstruction the soft tissue in the breast itself is removed. So we only have a very thin layer of skin. Underneath that layer of skin you have muscle and potentially an implant. As the implant pushes up against that skin it causes a vascular response and the skin can die and fall apart. Now you have the potential of an exposed wound with an implant which is catastrophic. If that happens you have to remove the implant you have to go back to surgery, you have to undergo further surgery, extensive surgery and it can be just devastating.
And that is something that was avoided with her. When it comes to this XCelliStem, the powder I mean does it—explain how it’s used in the doctor’s office and how long it generally takes to see the healing process work?
Dr. Sudarsky: Well the healing process can be so different in so many patients if you’re a smoker if you’ve had radiation if you’re diabetic. But if you’re a young healthy patient such as my partner who we’ve been discussing it shouldn’t take that long. But the process is such that we have to remove the dead and dying tissue and then it has to be replaced with XCelliStem. So what I do is excise the dead tissue and the nonviable tissue, sprinkle the powder at the bedside in the office cover it with a non-adherent dressing and keep it moist. Then I change the dressing every two to three days. It’s very interesting because you watch the cells enter in to the field and start healing. So you go from a potentially catastrophic open wound and every two or three days we see it get smaller and smaller, and you see the new stem cells and the new skin growing in and it’s just delightful. It’s such a happy moment rather than having to rush in to surgery and take everything apart.
It’s almost like magic, now this is not stem cell therapy.
Dr. Sudarsky: This is not stem cell therapy. What it is, is it’s sort of an alternative if you will to stem cell therapy. Because what we’re doing is we are attracting your own stem cells. I’m not injecting stem cells, I’m not laying in stem cells I’m bringing in your own stem cells as the patient in to the field to promote wound healing.
How would you describe the powder itself, like a certain agent or how do you describe the powder?
Dr. Sudarsky: I’d be happy to show it to you if you would like to see. It comes in a very small jar and it’s just sprinkles. Sometimes we call it pixie dust. And you just sprinkle it in to the field in a very light layer and that’s it. It’s not painful, it doesn’t smell, it’s not obnoxious or difficult to use it’s very, very simple.
It can be used for so many different issues, for so many different medical conditions that may cause wounds.
Dr. Sudarsky: Yes it can. I think it works the same way whether you are a patient who has been a smoker or whether you’re a patient who has had radiation. Whether you’ have pre-morbid conditions so to speak. In other words, if you’re a slow healer you will still heal with this product as opposed to being a fast healer and a healthy healer. It works the same way. Now somebody who has preexisting conditions it may take them longer but there’s no reason why it should not work.
And right now, as of right now, this is FDA approved only for what, physicians’ offices?
Dr. Sudarsky: Yes, for physicians’ offices and also in the operating room. I foresee a time hopefully very soon where we will be using it in the operating room to accelerate wound healing post operatively. In other words, that will prevent further complications in wound healing issues.
What is this powder made of? What is it?
Dr. Sudarsky: Well, the powder comes from a pig. It a porcine model and it comes from all the different cell types of the pig so all of these different cell types are brought together as a mixture. And then that’s what accelerates the wound healing and that’s what promotes your body to make stem cells. There’s other products on the market but they come from one area of an animal. This is a multitude. It’s a complex model from all the different areas in the pig that will help promote stem cell treatments.
Why pigs?
Dr. Sudarsky: I think that we should say that historically the pig has been used for many, many years as a model. And that humans, in general, do not reject pig porsine tissue. We use it as I’m sure that you know as heart valves, and we have been using it for many years and it seems to be very well incorporated into the human tissue.
Where do you see this going in the medical field?
Dr. Sudarsky: Well, I think based on the past, based on history and looking forward as to where this might work, what I love about it is that it makes your own tissue, make your own tissue. So in places like joints where you need more cartilage, as we get older our joints start falling apart and our cartilage is no longer springy. If we can put XCelliStem into a joint and let our bodies, our stem cells create more cartilage that would be great. Or in the heart, what if you’ve had a heart attack. Now you have dead muscle. That’s what happens after you have a heart attack. The muscle dies off. If you could then inject or place the XCelliStem into this area and then make your muscle make new muscle, how exciting would that be. I think that there’s a tremendous amount of potential here, and it only is going to take time for us to discover what that is.
Give me your web site address.
Dr. Sudarsky: Our web site is www.sesseplasticsurgery.com
END OF INTERVIEW
This information is intended for additional research purposes only. It is not to be used as a prescription or advice from Ivanhoe Broadcast News, Inc. or any medical professional interviewed. Ivanhoe Broadcast News, Inc. assumes no responsibility for the depth or accuracy of physician statements. Procedures or medicines apply to different people and medical factors; always consult your physician on medical matters.
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