For diabetics and not only
Cellular technologies help in the treatment of trophic ulcers
Press Service of FITZ ICiG SB RAS
Diabetes affects hundreds of millions of inhabitants of our planet. And according to experts' forecasts, their number will grow markedly in the coming decades. One of the common consequences of the development of this disease is trophic ulcers of the lower extremities. They are almost impossible to heal and often their development leads to the saddest consequences, including amputation and death. In addition, the cause of ulcers can be not only diabetes, but also varicose veins, hypertension, atherosclerosis and a number of other diseases. This further increases the number of people at risk of developing ulcers.
All this makes the search for effective ways to heal trophic ulcers an urgent task of modern science. One of the promising ways to solve it is considered to be the use of cellular technologies. Research in this area has been conducted for a number of years by scientists and doctors of the Research Institute of Clinical and Experimental Lymphology (NIIKEL), a branch of the FIT ICiG SB RAS. They managed to get encouraging results. Some of them are presented in articles published in the Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine, "Successes of Gerontology" and other scientific journals.
Initially, the work was carried out with stem /progenitor cells of the bone marrow, as well as products of their secretion.
– Our study has shown the effectiveness of using this biomedical cell product in the treatment of critical lower limb ischemia, which often becomes a source of trophic ulcers in the patient, – said Alexander Lykov, a leading researcher at FITZ ICiG SB RAS, PhD.
The main barrier to the widespread introduction of this method of treatment is the high cost and difficult conditions for obtaining the cellular product itself. Therefore, scientists have studied the possibility of using another resource – autologous plasma of patients enriched with platelets. This method was modified by the staff of the Laboratory of Cellular Technologies of the Institute under the guidance of Olga Poveshchenko, MD, and is already used in the treatment of patients of the NIIKEL clinic. The essence of the modification is to obtain biologically active substances contained in platelet granules by freezing/defrosting cycles of platelet concentrate of patients in a small volume of autologous plasma (1-3 ml). Then it is precipitated and filtered from platelet fragments. And only after that they are mixed with the rest of the plasma. The resulting product is packaged in sterile vials, part of the plasma is used on the day of preparation, the rest is stored frozen and used in the future according to the treatment regimen.
– The effectiveness of this method of treatment reaches 80-90%, this is a high enough percentage to consider it promising, – said Alexander Lykov.
The researchers also managed to establish the probable reasons why a number of patients failed to achieve complete healing of ulcers. This is also described in the published article. Most often, this result is observed in patients with diabetes mellitus and is associated with a decrease in the functional activity of their fibroblasts. Nevertheless, the widespread introduction of such a method of treating trophic ulcers of the lower extremities of any genesis can improve the quality of life of patients, reduce financial costs and reduce the risk of amputations and mortality, scientists believe.
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Trophic ulcers are a defect of the skin or mucous membranes that occurs due to a violation of tissue nutrition.
Autologous plasma is plasma taken from a patient and used for his treatment.
Biomedical cell product is a complex consisting of cell/cell lines and excipients from the cell line (secretion products) (Federal Law No. 180).
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