Dubai: A 19-year-old Palestinian bomb blast victim underwent a cosmetic surgery using her own stem cells to fill up a gaping hole in the calf of her right leg.
The surgery was done at a Dubai hospital free of charge in the spirit of Year of Giving. Dr Mohan Rangaswamy, the chief plastic surgeon at the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery Hospital (AACSH), is among one of the first to use this technique in the region.
The series of surgeries, the first two of which have already been carried out at the hospital in Dubai Health Care City, will relieve the young woman of pain and improve circulation in the calf while adding fat cells to fill up the hole, said Dr Rangaswamy.
Nima Freij underwent the first two surgeries in December 2016, and arrived in Dubai for the third surgery to be carried out before Eid Al Fitr.
Reliving the horror of the explosion when she was a eleven-and-a-half years, young Nima Freij, now a high school graduate, said: “I was going to the market to buy some chocolates with friends near my home in Gaza when someone threw a bomb at a young man from the anti-terrorist squad who was standing close to us. The bomb hit the ground and exploded and a shrapnel got into my calf muscle ripping it. I passed out from the pain and when I gained consciousness, I could see the ripped fabric of my trousers with flesh hanging out and blood everywhere,” said Freij in a calm, matter-of-fact manner.
Freij was taken in an ambulance to the hospital in Gaza where she was in the danger of losing her leg. “There was no anaesthesia available at the hospital and the doctors could not carry out any surgery. For nearly a month, they continued to scrape out dead tissue without anaesthesia, clean my wounds and do dressing. The surgeons feared they would have to amputate my leg. “I was too young to understand the implications of amputation but now when I can stand on my two legs, I am thankful amputation was averted.”
Freij was taken by volunteers to Egypt and Saudi Arabia where a skin graft was carried out and the wound was eventually closed. However, as she grew, the graft which was thin and tight began to cause a lot of pain on her wound and finally she came to AACSH in December last year for the first in the series of surgeries that are to be carried out to help fill up the fat in the gaping hole and relieve the pain.
Elaborating on the procedure, Dr Rangaswamy told Gulf News: “The patient had lost a lot of muscle and fat in the right leg owing to the explosion. The skin graft that was used to cover the wound had over the years tightened as she grew up as grafts do not grow. We conducted two surgeries in December 2016. In the first surgery, we first harvested the stem cells from her own adipose tissue which is now considered one of the richest source of dormant stem cells, even better than the bone marrow. This technology is available at a laboratory in the health care city. In the second surgery, I used these stem cells, mixed with fat cells, to inject into the calf area. This not only helped elevate the depth of the wound, but softened the scars and had anti-inflammatory effect on the area. Now the contours of the affected area have improved.”
In the third surgery to be carried out in this month itself, Dr Rangaswamy plans to remove the front of the grafted skin, and advance the tissue and surrounding skin within and extend the flab. “This will relieve the pain that is the result of the nerves being pulled and, as her underlying skin is extended, it will fill up the wound and the additional stem cells from the fat cells injected into the area will help in better vascularisation of the area, improving circulation and filling up of the contours. I will also use the stem cells to fill a deeper upper wound on the same leg so that it will fill up the contours here and only be seen as a minor scar eventually.“
By the end of 2017, Freij can expect to be pain free. Freij who dreams of completing a degree in law said she was not afraid of pain and looked forward to having better use of her right leg.
How the new stem cell therapy repairs tissues?
Autologous stem cells from the adipose tissue have been found to be far more effective than bone marrow stem cells and are now being used to repair and rejuvenate various tissues in the body. There is no fear of immune rejection as the stem cells are extracted from the patient’s own body.
The patient undergoes a simple liposuction procedure to extract 100-120 cc of fat cells. These are then put through state-of-the-art technology to separate the stem cells which are then cultured in the lab and multiplied to millions of stem cells which are then stored in sub-zero temperatures for three-five years.
A patient is administered these stem cells through full body IV. Stem cells are able to detect distress signals from inflammatory areas of the body and migrate to that section and begin differentiating and integrating with the tissues of the affected area. Stem cells not only vascularise the area with better blood circulation but also induce better healing.
This technique is specially being used in cases of chemotherapy or radiation where a patient has lesions or ulcers from the therapy; during heart attacks where such stem cells are able to replace the damaged myocardial tissue; and in advanced anti-ageing cosmetic surgery where doctors inject patient’s own stem cells to stimulate collagen build up and improved circulation in the face, neck and other areas.
— S.B.C.
