UFSM laboratory is the only one in the country to carry out biotherapy
When biologist Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928, the world was never the same. The first existing antibiotic expanded into an unprecedented fight against infections, prolonging lives. Thus, natural techniques – some ancient – that were being developed in medicine fell into disuse. Over time, in the 1980s, the resistance of bacteria to the medicine became notable, a fact that brought biotherapy, tentatively, back to the clinical scene. Biotherapy is the use of live animals to aid in the diagnosis or treatment of diseases. One of the biotherapies that gained strength again was larval therapy (or Maggot therape Onofre Lopes University Hospital, where she is currently president of the dressing committee, in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte. However, it lacks a structured laboratory that provides the appropriate flies for the work. The practice of larval biotherapy consists of applying fly larvae in the first phase (L1) to wounds and injuries from a wide range of causes, such as fire or car accidents.
When applied, they only eat the necrotic tissue and, with their saliva, they stimulate the growth of new tissue, that is, healing. With practice, both animals and humans who were condemned to amputation or stuck in treatments due to injuries have new hope. This word is repeated in the “Alimentando Esperança” project, linked to the Veterinary Parasitology Laboratory (Lapavet) at UFSM, whose objective is to provide larvae for health professionals to apply to interested and needy patients. Silvia (center), with Carine Comarella, laboratory technician (left), and Talissa Santos, Veterinary DM Databases student (right) Feeding hope Saving lives and spreading the practice of biotherapy is the dream of the laboratory coordinator, Silvia Gonzalez Monteiro. Silvia is a veterinarian and professor of veterinary parasitology at the Health Sciences Center (CCS) at UFSM. Since she joined the Institution in 2002, she has made efforts to structure and organize the practice that she has always admired. However, it faced limitations, such as failures in the air conditioning, which is vital for the breeding environment, or when, on vacation, the person responsible did not take care of the colony, and, no less important, staff support.
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It was then that, in 2017, the researcher once again started a fly colony and found students interested in helping. Professor Daniel Roulim Stainki, who, like Silvia, is from the Department of Microbiology and Parasitology, helps with the evaluation of cases. Despite the pandemic, studies have not stopped and, currently, the laboratory is the only one in the country to develop biotherapy. By requesting the laboratory 48 hours in advance and for R$ 25.00, a healthcare professional receives the package with the larvae kept in gauze, with the quantity calculated in relation to the size of the wound (there are 5 to 10 larvae per square centimeter injured, personalized for each patient), ready for application. Once applied, the larvae must always be removed from the patient after 48 hours, when they are already satiated, and at the L3 stage, one before the pupa stage. Thus, depending on the complexity of the injury, other applications, with new larvae, are performed, repeating the process until healing. For now, animals from the Santa Maria University Veterinary Hospital (HVU), private clinics or independent professionals, are the only patients.
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