Regenerative Healing: Lee Spievak Re-Grows Finger Tip

[Ivan Seeking]

You might become a believer in the power of magic dust, when you see how a special powder re-grew the tip of Lee Spievack's finger.

He sliced off a half inch of his finger in the propeller of a hobby shop airplane. His finger never even formed a scar.

"Your finger grew back flesh, blood, vessels and nail?" CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports.

"Four weeks," Spievak said. [continued]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/07/eveningnews/main3805318.shtml

 

[hypatia]

Absolutely wondrous.

 

[Moonbear]

I can't get any of their videos to work for some reason. Drat! I wanted to see the finger more clearly for myself, just to get an idea of how much it regrew and how normal it looks. I'm also curious if his injury involved the bone, or just the fleshy part of the tip, and whether he has normal sensation in the fingertip now. Basically, just trying to get an idea of the limitations and expectations to have for it.

From what's been described in the news story, it sounds hopeful as something to promote healing of flesh wounds, burns, etc. I'm not sure if it's going to be as promising for amputated limbs as the article is claiming, but really, even if it can promote some healing and tissue growth around the base of the stump for a more comfortable prosthetic fit, I think that would be a positive accomplishment for amputees.

Edit: Finally got the videos to work. Okay, confirmed some of my suspicions. The guy did not sever off the entire nail base...in the story, he said about an 1/8 inch was still left of the nail. That means we don't know that this stuff has any effect on nail growth, because the part of the finger where the nail grows was still intact. It will be interesting to see the results of the clinical trials and the extent to which it really works to promote healing as opposed to scarring. it's interesting that the guy who used it talks about other things he did in the interview, such as keeping the wound open and not using antibiotics...what if his success was simply due to good care in keeping out infection while keeping the wound open and free of antibiotics, things that are rarely done with such an injury?