BHUBANESWAR: In a first, AIIMS Bhubaneswar performed skin allograft on two minor children with critical burn injuries giving them a fresh lease of life.The skin was brought from Mumbai Skin Bank for another patient who, however, did not survive.
The two minors - Shravani Mallick (6) of Bhubaneswar’s Kesura area and Puri district’s Suryakant (7) - were admitted to AIIMS in a critical condition after they came in contact with live electric wire. Both hands of Shravani had got severely burnt, while Suryakant sustained burns all over his body except the face.
The girl was initially admitted to Capital Hospital before being shifted to SCB medical college and hospital at Cuttack. Her family was disheartened when the doctors there expressed inability to save her even after amputation of her two hands. With no option left, they brought her to the burns centre at AIIMS. Similarly, Suryakant was rushed to AIIMS as doctors at the district headquarters hospital, Puri could not assure full recovery.
Shravani was immediately managed for acute kidney failure, respiratory distress, sepsis and fluid resuscitation. She had to undergo emergency intubation to prevent multi-organ failure and sepsis. The girl also underwent bilateral upper limb emergency fasciotomy, right elbow disarticulation, left shoulder disarticulation and tangential excision of all of her wounds.Head of the Plastic Surgery department Dr Sanjay Giri said all her wounds were serially debrided with regular dressings to make the wounds healthy to receive grafting.
A team of surgeons performed the procedure on the two minors. “Shravani received an allograft for about 1400 sq cm area of her body. The allograft helped in speedy recovery of her wounds, but also acted as a biological barrier to the infection. The grafting was done in five phases,” he said.
With all her grafted sites healed, she is now being encouraged to walk with support and use her lower limbs. Physiotherapists are working closely with her parents to work on her bilateral upper limb (special prosthetic arms) for uninterrupted development and functioning.
Suryakant underwent tangential excision of wounds over right thigh, lower trunk and he received allograft for 300 sq cm area. He is now doing well and all his wounds are healing. He is being prepared for auto-skin grafting, said Dr Giri.
Executive director of AIIMS Dr Ashutosh Biswas said both the children recovered after allograft done for the first time here. “We have plans to expand the burns centre with additional beds and one more OT. The centre will also have a skin bank,” he added.Another 20-month-old patient from Nayagarh who received scald burns due to hot oil spillage while playing at his residence also underwent grafting with own skin. He has fully recovered.