Local doctor uses stem-cell membrane from donated placenta to treat foot ulcers

A Southeast Missouri doctor is taking advantage of stem-cell technology to treat his patients' wounds and getting results faster than any treatment he's used in the past.

Last year, Dr. Hugh Protzel of Foot and Ankle Centers of Southeast Missouri began offering a product called Grafix to his patients, which is essentially cryopreserved human placental tissue.

"It's a membrane. It's the thinnest thing you've ever seen in your life; it's just a few cells thick," Protzel said.

He uses it to treat patients with chronic wounds -- most often foot ulcers brought about by diabetes.

"It revitalizes the whole wound," he said.

Previously stagnant ulcers, making no progress toward healing, will "become active again," Protzel said.

The treatment not only speeds the healing process, but unlike other treatments, it is applied weekly rather than daily, he said.

"You put it on in the office, and they come back in the next week with the same bandage on." Protzel said.

"Diabetic wounds on the foot are an interesting challenge because you can't keep people off [their feet]," Protzel said.

Ulcers tend to take at least 10 weeks to heal, often more, while using traditional methods of treatment. Grafix, he said, "works in half the time."

The phrase "stem cells" often can conjure concerns about using embryonic tissue, but Protzel said the product is derived from placenta voluntarily donated after live births.

"It works great, and it's ethical," Protzel said. Otherwise, he said, "there's no way I'd go for that. This is completely above board, and we're fortunate to have it available."

Protzel said he learned about the treatment last year during a podiatry conference, where he tested the product and found it easy to work with, so he decided to try it right away.

One of the first patients he treated with Grafix had undergone a trans-metatarsal amputation -- part of his foot was removed. The wound, he said, normally would have been closed using skin from the bottom of the foot. But in this case, that wasn't possible. So instead he used Grafix.

"We healed that in just couple of months," Protzel said. "That was one of the first ones; it was amazing."

More than a year later, Protzel's patients continue to find success with the product, though they are sometimes surprised to learn about the method.

"I couldn't believe how I was going to be treated," said Barb Tyler, a patient of Protzel's who is undergoing treatment for a diabetic foot ulcer. "It was quite an experience."

The membrane arrives at the office packed in dry ice, then is thawed and rehydrated in saline.

"You wait for it to defrost; they measure it down to the nth degree," Tyler said. "It's amazing."

"You can actually work with it and manipulate it to the shape that you want of the wound with tweezers," Protzel said. "So that's how it applied."

The treatment, Tyler said, is cool but pleasing, because the wound, until that point wrapped up in bandages, is hot.

"I just sit up there in a big blue chair, and they fix me up. And I trust them," Tyler said.

Tyler is on her fifth or sixth week of treatment, and she expects it to be complete soon.

"It's healing up, and I hope we're at the end so I can wear two shoes," she said. "Because you know, hon, it's getting cold outside."

bbrown@semissourian.com

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