Medieval
Medicine Gets Modern
The mechanical leach has distinct advantages
over its living counterpart, not the least of
which is the reduced "ick" factor.
Photo by Jeff Miller. |
Hospitals
may soon be losing one of their oldest and trustiest
tools: the medicinal leech.
Once
used to treat everything from consumption to cancer,
leech therapy has, in recent decades, been discredited
as superstitious quackery. Modern doctors use leeches
for the single purpose of relieving venous congestion
- clotting that can occur within blood vessels after
reconstructive surgery. Now, an invention from a team
of UW researchers may take that last job away from
the parasites.
"In
the case of the leech in medicine," says Nadine
Connor PhD'97, one of the scientists, "we think
we can improve on nature. We believe a mechanical
device can be more effective" than a leech in
removing clots and improving circulation.
Blood
flow becomes a vital concern after surgeries such
as the reattachment of a finger or a toe. Damaged
veins where the digit was severed are prone to suffer
clots, and if no blood reaches the reattached digit,
it will become gangrenous.
Leeches - the real variety - can prevent clotting
through their method of feeding. When a leech bites
into its host, it doesn't just suck out a meal of
tasty blood. It also injects the host with a mild
anesthetic and an anticoagulant. Though a leech feeds
for only thirty minutes or so, the anticoagulant goes
on working for hours afterward, ensuring that blood
continues to flow freely through the host's veins.
But leeches also make most patients squeamish. "People
don't want this disgusting organism hanging on their
body," says Connor. "This added stress for
both patient and family members compounds an already
difficult situation."
And so Connor and her colleagues, Gregory Hartig at
the UW and Michael Conforti DVM'97 of Madison's William
S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Administration Hospital,
schemed to create a machine that can do the parasite's
work more efficiently. The mechanical leech can remain
attached to a patient for longer periods, removing
more blood and injecting more anticoagulant.
"There
is a big difference between what a real leech can
do and what our mechanical leech can do," says
Conforti.
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