LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Maggots are making a medical comeback. A Louisville doctor is using the creepy crawlers to help with wounds that just won't heal.
Dr. Jae Jung, a dermatologist with Norton Cancer Institute, admits it took some convincing for her to use maggots in her practice. "I nearly lost my lunch and I thought this is not something I'd be willing to do myself," she said.
Yet she's using maggots to treat patients. "It's something that has been emerging as something patients and physicians are interested in," Dr. Jung said.
The fly larvae won FDA approval nearly 15 years ago, but have been used by doctors for more than a century. "Maggot debridement therapy has been used since antiquity to treat wounds and has been described as early as the Civil War I believe in print," said Dr. Jung.
The treatment uses sterile larvae raised in a lab. Doctors then apply them to wounds that just won't heal. The maggots eat away the dead tissue without making the wound any bigger.
"Initially they're very, very tiny kind of like rice kernels. But they get to be fairly sizable in three days and most of my patients can feel them moving at that point," said Dr. Jung.
She recently used maggots on a patient who was in a lot of pain and had run out of options. "She had already previously had a toe amputated from a similar ulcer," said Dr. Jung.
When the pain got to be too much, she opted for the unconventional treatment. Maggots are wrapped into the wound to keep them in place. Then three days later after the maggots have eaten away the dead tissue, they're removed. "After the first treatment she came in and her pain was better. She was off pain medicine," said Dr. Jung.
Wound size determines how many maggots are used and how many cycles of the treatment are required.
Hundreds of thousands of people every year suffer from diabetic foot ulcers which can lead to amputations, and with medical costs in the U.S. continuing to climb, Dr. Jung argues maggots could be a cost effective option.
"When you look at the wound care products that are out there, there are so many and they're increasingly getting more expensive and maggots really do the best job," said Dr. Jung.
That's if they can get past the yuck factor.
Copyright 2018 WDRB News. All rights reserved.
