CUT WHILE NESTING: VACUUM SEALS WOUND
Yoko, a Komodo dragon, has extremely delicate skin that is prone to infection. So when she suffered an injury in Singapore, the search was on to find a method to treat the wound before it could turn into a life-threatening infection.
That search led halfway around the world to a device developed by two doctors at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
And today, Yoko, one of three Komodo dragons at the Singapore Zoo, is healed, alive and well.
In 1990, Drs. Louis Argenta and Michael Morykwas, researchers in the plastic- and reconstructive-surgery department, developed the Vacuum-Assisted Closure device, or VAC, for treating difficult-to-heal wounds.
The device has been used on about 3.5 million people worldwide, Argenta said. It is used to treat diabetic wounds and those caused by trauma, such as gunshots.
The system uses a vacuum to pull infected fluid away from a wound and to draw the edges of the wound together.
About 400 of the devices were sent to Haiti after the magnitude-7 earthquake struck in January, Argenta said. They were used on people who had been crushed by collapsing buildings.
The VAC device has been used on cows and horses in Winston-Salem, and a turtle on the North Carolina coast that had its shell cracked by a boat.
But, as far as Argenta knows, this is the first time that it has been used on a lizard.
"I think this being an endangered species, they were doing everything they could to save it," he said of the dragon.
Yoko was the mother of the first successfully hatched Komodo dragon bred in Asia. Last November, she was laying a second batch of eggs in her underground burrow when she wedged herself into a crevice and hurt the skin on her back.
Serena Oh, the assistant director in the veterinary department at the Wildlife Reserves Singapore, which manages the zoo, said that the dragon's skin is very difficult to treat.
"We needed a solution to generate tissue growth quickly with zero risk of infection," Oh said in a news release.
Argenta said that he has lectured in Singapore a few times and that VAC therapy is often used in that island country because of accidents between motorists and people riding motorcycles and scooters.
Amputation rates are high, he said, and VAC therapy has helped reduce such operations.
Argenta said he never had any conversations with anyone at the 69-acre zoo, but he said he believes that zoo officials may have heard of his work from the use of VAC therapy on accident victims.
Dr. Lee Shu Jin, a consultant with the division of plastic, reconstructive and aesthetic surgery at National University Hospital in Singapore, said that the treatment was a success.
"Reptiles normally heal very slowly, but we are very happy to report that Yoko made great progress in her recovery with VAC therapy," Jin said. "She was also eating and moving normally throughout the entire process."
Argenta said that even though he never had any contact with the zoo or anyone who treated the lizard, he wouldn't rule out the possibility of a house call at some point to meet Yoko.
"I'd love to go see it," he said.
mgiunca@wsjournal.com
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