Excela podiatrist honored with award in Iceland for fish-based wound treatment

An Excela podiatrist was honored at a conference in Iceland for his use of a wound treatment product that comes from an unlikely source: under the sea.

Dr. Patrick Roberto of Excela Health’s Advanced Wound Center traveled to Reykjavik at the end of February for the Northern Lights Wound Workshop after being recognized as a recipient of an Aurora Award from Kerecis, a company that develops health care products made from fish skin.

Roberto submitted a clinical case study detailing his successful work with the Kerecis fish skin products to treat a patient with a leg wound that was difficult to heal. At the conference in Iceland, Roberto presented the case study and learned from other doctors who had also shown success with the treatment.

For the patient Roberto treated with the Kerecis product, it only took eight weeks to fill in the bone-deep wound with normal tissue after it was packed with what Roberto describes as “fish flakes,” a micro-version of the product that resembles paper cut up into tiny pieces.

“It is exciting. I have used it on several patients here at the clinic,” Roberto said of the fish skin treatment. “It was amazing how quickly it worked.”

Because the product is made from processed north Atlantic cod skin, it looks very similar under a microscope to human tissue, and contains omega-3 fatty acids, which can have anti-inflammatory impacts, he explained. It can be used on wounds as long as they are more than a centimeter deep, but can’t be used on an infected wound.

“Sometimes it takes 10 months to a year to get wounds to heal. This maybe takes two months or four months,” he said. “The scar tissue is very minimal as well.”

At the conference in Iceland, Roberto met with upwards of 36 other medical experts from around the world, he said.

“They were from every field of medicine you could imagine,” he said. “There were doctors from dermatology, orthopedics, plastic surgeons, general practitioners and private practice, a variety of medical professionals that were utilizing (the treatment) and presenting each of their (case studies.)”

Roberto and the other doctors gathered in breakout sessions to discuss the cases, he said. He looks forward to using the fish skin product in future treatments.

“We spent the entire morning on maybe 10 to 15 cases, discussing how they utilized it in their setting, and how we could take that and utilize it in our settings,” he said. “A lot of it is being used in an operating room setting, as well as in wound centers, and having excellent results. I did learn how I could use it, in addition to how I’m already using it.”