Recently there has been a new, and very impressive, health trend popping up in Brazil. Doctors in Fortaleza, Brazil, are turning away from treating burned patients with gauze and cream and are turning to treating them with sterilized tilapia fish skin. This treatment with tilapia skin has mainly been directed towards patients suffering from second and third degree burns, and has been very successful so far.
Before this introduction of sterilized tilapia skin as a treatment for burned patients, doctors in Brazil relied on using gauze and silver sulfadizine cream. This silver sulfadizine cream was used specifically because it contained silver, which helped prevent infection and any other complications that could arise for a patient. Although this method was the traditional way of treating burns and was used for a long period of time, it is unclear as to how successful it was. It was unknown if the silver sulfadizine cream really helped heal a burn faster, and the gauze and cream dressing had to be changed every day as the wound had to be washed and cleaned out every day. This cleaning process was always something patients struggled to deal with, as cleaning the wound out caused them a lot of pain. Also, with this gauze and cream method, patients still had to take pain medication to manage the pain they experienced as they went through the healing process. With the introduction of tilapia skin as a potential new treatment however, the way both doctors and patients saw the treatment of burns completely changed.
Tilapia fish are heavily farmed throughout Brazil, which leads to a massive amount of tilapia skin available. These skins are typically thrown away by fishermen and fisheries, as they only desire the meaty part of the fish. With so much tilapia skin being wasted, why not find some use for these skins so that they are not wasted every day? Doctors who first began investigating the use of tilapia skin discovered that tilapia skin contained a lot of collagen proteins, which is vital to healing burns and starting the scarring process. Besides this, they found that tilapia skin also contained other properties that made it slightly better than human skin; tilapia skin contained not only a huge amount of collagen, but also contained a lot more moisture in the skin than in human skin. The use of tilapia skin as an alternative treatment to gauze and cream for burn victims was a huge step forward in the health industry. Brazil doesn't have a lot of skin banks that other countries such as the U.S. have, and the three skin banks that Brazil does have cannot meet the national demand. Therefore, the use of tilapia skin was a great discovery.
Before the skin can be used, it goes through an intense process of sterilization and radiation to kill viruses. After this process is completed, the skin stays fresh for two years before it has to be thrown out. Through using the skin on patients, doctors have found that they don't have to change and wash the wounds as much, as the tilapia skin adheres to the wound until it starts to scar, then flakes off on its own. Patients who have received this tilapia skin treatment have also found that they don't even need to use pain medication, as with the tilapia skin on their body, their wounds barely even hurt.
The use of tilapia skin is a great discovery, but it can only be used in places where the skin can be properly sterilized and packaged, which can pose a problem to some countries and nations. However, this process of utilizing tilapia skins has worked wonders for Brazil, and many clinical trials are taking place there now to see if the tilapia skin treatment process continues to be efficacious. If these clinical trials are successful, then Brazilian doctors are hoping that the use of tilapia skin to treat burned victims will become known on an international and worldwide scale, become known to public health systems, and be utilized worldwide. With the success that this treatment has had in Brazil, it seems very likely that it will soon become known and utilized worldwide.
Information from: https://www.statnews.com/2017/03/02/brazil-tilapia-skin-burns/