PODIATRIST RECALLS HOW HE USED MAGGOT THERAPY ON GANGRENOUS FOOT

The course of modern wound care changed one day in the late 1980s because a medical resident at the University of California, Irvine, named Ronald Sherman wore a butterfly-patterned tie. The chief resident of plastic surgery noticed it, recalls Sherman. “He said, ‘Do you know anything about bugs?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I was an entomology major.’ He said, ‘Ever heard of maggot therapy?’” The rest became creepy-crawly history that has ended up saving countless lives and limbs: a resurgence of therapy using maggots and leeches, which are the only two live animals FDA-approved as medical devices.

 

Dr. Ravi Kamble

 

Podiatrist Ravi Kamble, DPM recalls a patient with a gangrenous foot, an untreatable infection that spread to the bone. It seemed like his only hope for survival was amputation. “I still remember this guy, and he was in tears. He said, ‘Please, I will do anything, anything you want. I just want to save this leg,’” recalls Kamble. He says he danced around the word maggot when telling the patient his treatment plan, but the man was a high school biology teacher and was a step ahead when Kamble obliquely referenced biotherapy: “He says, ‘Oh, you mean maggot therapy? I’m totally down. Let’s do it.’”

 

Source: Kate Golembiewski, Discover [12/9/20]

Courtesy of Barry Block, editor of PM News