UPLAND - The Crozer-Keystone Center for Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Medicine, which opened at Crozer-Chester Medical Center in December 2007, offers many services for patients with chronic wounds. One of the most advanced services is Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT).
HBOT requires a patient to be enclosed in a hyperbaric chamber that provides them with 100 percent oxygen. The increased atmospheric pressure causes oxygen to dissolve in the blood. The dissolved oxygen then circulates easily throughout the body, stimulating damaged tissues to heal and white blood cells, along with the addition of antibiotics, to combat infection.
Each year, approximately 3-5 million chronic ulcers are diagnosed in the United States. There are many types of ulcers, including those caused by arterial disease, pressure ulcers, venous ulcers and diabetic ulcers. More than 23 million people in the United States are living with diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. Most often, diabetics have difficulty maintaining health in their lower extremities - such as legs and feet - where ulcers and pressure sores can form.
Leg ulcers in those with diabetes lead to a higher rate of lower extremity amputation. “The cost of amputation and rehabilitation can run as high as 1.5 billion dollars a year nationwide. HBOT helps to heal the wound quicker and has an 86 percent reduction risk for amputation,” says Ponnampalam Sabanayagam, M.D., program director at the Center of Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Medicine.
Sabanayagam has seen many positive results in patients who receive hyperbaric treatments, especially those with diabetic wounds.
“Using this alternative method to treat leg ulcers has been very positive. The chambers provide patients with 100 percent oxygen at a pressure greater than normal atmospheric pressure to speed up the healing process. Patients who have used hyperbaric medicine have decreased their chances of having a limb amputation compared to the use of conventional therapy,” he says.
Sabanayagam continues, “Most patients think hyperbaric treatment is relatively new, but it has been around for almost 400 years. Hyperbaric chambers are have been used for centuries, as early at 1662. Only since the 19th century has hyperbaric oxygen therapy been clinically used for divers in the Navy to treat decompression illness.”
Some of the medical benefits that have resulted from the history and discovery of HBOT including skin graft acceptance, flap survival and salvage, wound recovery and acute thermal burn treatment.
Today, HBOT is most commonly used for the following conditions:
- Acute arterial insufficiency, or sudden loss of blood flow to an artery due to a spasm or clot
- Osteomyelitis, an infection of the bone
- Necrotizing infection, characterized by death of infected tissue
- Preparation for, and preservation of, skin grafts and flaps
- Non-healing diabetic wounds of the legs
- Radiation tissue damage to skin and bone
- Lower extremity wounds from vascular insufficiency
- Crush injury
- Carbon monoxide and cyanide poisoning.
“It is important for oral surgeons, primary care physicians or anyone who would refer a patient to a hyperbaric center to know that we are here and accepting patients,” says William J. Mannella, M.D., chairman of the Division of Surgery and medical director of the Center for Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Medicine. “Oral surgery patients need hyperbaric treatment before and after oral surgery if they have had prior radiation to the head and neck. Accessibility is no longer an issue because an outpatient site is located right on Crozer’s North Campus.”
Mannella explains that hyperbaric medicine is an adjunctive therapy to assist in healing, specifically in treating specific wound problems. “What is really nice about the Wound Center is that we have the ability to make your visits as convenient and accommodating as possible,” Mannella says.
He adds, “Safety is a priority with the Center. There is always a qualified professional and physician on site during your treatment. A technician is always within a visible range while a patient is in the dive chamber. At no time is a patient ever left unattended and all guidelines for safety are always maintained.”
The Center for Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Medicine at Crozer uses a team approach, providing each patient with an evaluation, diagnosis and treatment plan, as well as education to enhance the treatment outcome and prevent recurrence.
For more information about the Center for Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Medicine, call (610) 619-8400 or visit http://woundhealing.crozer.org.