Lower Extremity Wounds Treated With A Synthetic Hybrid-Scale Fiber Matrix

I'm Dr. Brad Abicht based out of La Crosse, Wisconsin. I currently serve as the department chair for the Podiatry Department at Gundersen Health System in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

The synthetic wound fiber matrix is a relatively newer product and newer technology within the wound healing space. Why I think it's really unique is because of its newness and the different technology that it utilizes for healing when compared to some of our more traditional wound products, such as skin allografts and different skin substitute type products. It is 100 percent synthetic, and so it's been bioengineered to represent the extracellular matrix of human tissue. This can be fine tuned, and right now it's been fine tuned to represent what the needs are for wound healing, whether you have a deep wound or a more superficial wound.

Because it's synthetic, there's less of an inflammatory reaction or less of an inflammatory cascade that happens, and with that, less exudate and less reaction that typically happens with the wound to the product itself. I think this has been a major advantage for some of the patients that I've been using it on and in treating our complex lower extremity wounds. We've seen a lot of successful wound healing with it. I've been lucky enough to be a part of a number of different studies that have analyzed that, which have been published in different peer reviewed journals, and continue to be a part of some other future studies that are ongoing, and really just, I've seen a lot of success in my own practice with its use.

We presented a recent case series at SAWC Spring, this was a small case series with the use of Restrata on different lower extremity ulcerations. These would be very common types of ulcerations that most people are seeing in their practices ranging from diabetic foot ulcerations to venous ulcers, as well as partial foot amputations that it's been used on. And similar to some of our other studies that we've done, this particular case series demonstrated successful wound healing with all the patients that were involved with fairly rapid wound healing, but also no side effects or negative outcomes associated with the product. It was determined that there was really minimal applications, a little bit over one application per wound that was needed to reach the endpoint of complete healing of their lower extremity wound. So that's another benefit I believe of the Restrata product is it doesn't take as many applications typically when compared to some of the other skin substitute type products on the market.

I guess I would just add additionally that it being a relatively newer type of product, it's kind of in its own category in terms of wound healing, so it is different than some of the biologics out there. I really would just encourage people to kind of get into the weeds behind the science of how it works. I think that's one thing that a lot of the studies out there do a good job at showing the science behind how it works or why it's working, and how it's working differently than some of our more traditional advanced wound care modalities that we have.