New Military Burn Treatments May One Day Help VA Car Crash Victims

New research being conducted by the military on soldiers suffering from burn wounds may help Virginia car crash victims one day.

The research, still at the early clinical trials phase, focuses on debilitating burns. It is being conducted at the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM), according to a news release issued by the U.S. Air Force. 

Painful and debilitating burns can become fatal if a bacterial infection invades the wound. The Pentagon launched AFIRM in 2008, hoping to speed the healing of America's wounded warriors in Iraq, Afghanistan, and perhaps now in Libya. Regenerative medicine is designed to enable patients to regrow bones, skin, and tissues. 

Military scientists are developing laboratory-grown tissues and biosynthetically-developed drugs to treat burn injuries.

A total of ten clinical trials are now under way, three of which focus on burn repair, according to a news release from the U.S. Air Force. 

AFIRM director Terry Irgens said the idea is to explore new medical technologies that are too expensive for the private sector to develop today.

Two research consortia, made up of professionals from 31 universities, are partnering with the U.S. Army Institute for Surgical Research at Fort Sam Houston, Texas to help. 

"Once you get some good, promising data, that's when the commercial companies will come forward," Irgens said.


Healthy Cell Spray

One of the more creative of clinical trials, which is entering the second phase, involves spraying a patient's healthy cells onto the burned area.

A total of seven patients already are enrolled in the trial, with a quota of 106 to participate based on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rules.

Dr. Smita Bhonsale, AFIRM's deputy director for science and technology, explained that the spray treatment works very simply, but is effective.

"The patient is rolled into the operating room, where doctors harvest a postage-stamp-size piece of skin from an unburned part of the body," Dr. Bhonsale said. "The biopsy is broken apart into single cells, which are then suspended in a gel-like solution so they can multiply and create new skin tissue. Within a matter of hours, the cells are sprayed onto the patient's burns, covering an area up to 80 times the size of the original biopsy."

For more information about these exciting developments in treatments of burn injuries, go to http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123247635.

If you or a family member has endured painful burns in a car accident in Virginia, you can get help immediately. Contact Michael S. Weisberg, PC today at 1-800-690-0235, and one of our lawyers will assist you. Call today.