The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center has the only adult verified burn center in the region and it's making history. It's the first health system in the world to use a new treatment called Cohealyx for burns and deep cuts.
The product is a collagen-based skin substitute that's designed to stimulate skin growth and blood vessel formation in patients with wounds that go through multiple layers of skin.
Burn surgeons Dr. John Loftus, MD and Dr. Ariel Rodgers, MD said the use of Cohealyx is followed by a skin graft from an area of the body with healthy skin.
"Just think of a piece of felt that melts into the skin with saline and then you place it on the patient's wound and let it heal in and then five days later you should be able to graft," Dr. Rodgers, MD said.
Studies found that Cohealyx was able to produce tissue faster than other products which take 2-4 weeks until a skin graft. Debbie Boyer was the first patient to ever receive the treatment.
"I burnt my hand on the stove," Boyer said. "I was cooking and my sugar dropped instantly, and I ended up on the floor. I didn't know I burned it until I woke up."
Boyer was sent to Wexner's burn center with a third-degree burn.
"It was full thickness or meaning all through the layers of her skin down to the fat part of her arm," Dr. Rodgers, MD said.
According to Dr. Rodgers, MD, Cohealyx reduces a patient's time in the hospital.
"The other substitutes would take about 21 days to actually get to the point where we can actually skin graft them; however this took five and she left the hospital in a week and a half instead of a month later," Dr. Rodgers, MD said.
Cohealyx also allows doctors to care for more people.
"It decreases the time in the operating room for us to apply the product, so instead of being able to take care of one or two patients a day, we could go to four to six patients a day because of how easy it is to use," Dr. Loftus, MD said.
Boyer said the treatment has been a life saver. "If this wasn't here, I probably wouldn't have function in my arm or my hand especially," Boyer said.
The FDA granted clearance for Cohealyx in December.
"Of course, we don't want people to get burnt or have these types of wounds, however we are grateful for this type of product and that we can help more people and get them out sooner, faster and if we can help at least one more person for a shorter amount of time, it would be great," Dr. Rodgers, MD said.