8 ms·

Doctors in Brazil using tilapia fish skin to treat burn victims (2017)

288 points by kaycebasques 9mo ago

throwaway290 9mo ago
(2017)
sMarsIntruder 9mo ago
> In the US, animal-based skin substitutes require levels of scrutiny from the Food and Drug Administration and animal rights groups that can drive up costs, Lee said. Given the substantial supply of donated human skin, tilapia skin is unlikely to arrive at American hospitals anytime soon. This reminds me of Milton Friedman’s arguments against the FDA.
- lukebitts 9mo ago
  I wonder what’s the difference between countries that drives that. It’s not like Brazil doesn’t have its own FDA, which is much more strict than the US one, from what I know. Maybe some kind of lobbying? Or are animal rights group that much stronger?
  - MattGaiser 9mo ago
    I imagine it is about this: > But Brazil lacks the human skin, pig skin, and artificial alternatives that are widely available in the US. This is not an improvement on existing methods (it may end up being, but that is not the motivation) but rather a case of it being all they have to work with. Tilapia skin is probably better than no skin at all.
    - hu3 9mo ago
      > This is not an improvement on existing methods... a case of it being all they have to work with. But the article says Tilapia skin is better in multiple aspects: > "We got a great surprise when we saw that the amount of collagen proteins, types 1 and 3, which are very important for scarring, exist in large quantities in tilapia skin, even more than in human skin and other skins," Maciel said. "Another factor we discovered is that the amount of tension, of resistance in tilapia skin is much greater than in human skin. Also the amount of moisture."
      - dmurray 9mo ago
        It says it's different to human skin in multiple aspects. Do I need more collagen or more moisture in my skin? I would expect evolution made some pretty good choices around default human skin for typical human activities, and if more moisture was obviously good, I would already have it. Maybe tilapia skin is better for people who spend 24 hours a day swimming in lakes.
        hu3 9mo ago
        > It says it's different to human skin in multiple aspects. No it says "even more than in human skin and other skins". Not different. > Do I need more collagen or more moisture in my skin? For this context? Yes? Clearly the article answers that already. I even included in my first reply but you'll have a third chance to read it: > ...which are very important for scarring... And your attempt to move the goal post fails miserably as well. Or do you think humans evolved to perfection by thinking this: > I would expect evolution made some pretty good choices around default human skin for typical human activities, and if more moisture was obviously good, I would already have it. I don't think you are debating in good faith. Good luck.
  - skissane 9mo ago
    I was having a conversation about this with my father-a retired pharmaceutical industry executive-a few weeks back, about why certain generic prescription medication formulations were unavailable in Australia yet sold in New Zealand. He explained to me that the Australian pharmaceutical regulator (the TGA) and its New Zealand equivalent (Medsafe) had very different regulatory philosophies. Medsafe, if a major international regulator (such as the US FDA or the EU’s EMA) had already approved something, they’ll just approve it too (“if it is good enough for them it is good enough for us”); the TGA’s attitude was very different, just because the FDA or EMA had approved it didn’t mean they automatically would, they wanted to analyse the safety data for themselves and make up their own mind. For blockbuster patented drugs, the extra regulatory cost of Australia was worth it, but for the long tail of miscellaneous generic formulations, the extra cost of dealing with the TGA could make some of them financially nonviable.
    - tehjoker 9mo ago
      Medsafe's strategy only works so long as there is at least one stringent regulator though.
      - Auracle 9mo ago
        I would think for a country like Australia a more moderate approach would be to approve things that were approved by other countries and have been in use for some amount of time - say, 5 years or so - apart from the things they directly approve.
        skissane 9mo ago
        The actual drug my father and I were discussing was clonidine. In the UK and New Zealand, they sell 25 microgram clonidine tablets; in Australia, the smallest dose on sale is 100 micrograms. Clonidine is a very old drug – it was released back in the 1960s. The risks involved are very well understood (arguably the biggest risk is fatal overdoses, but patient/parent education is the accepted mitigation strategy.) The issue is, in Australia, it is only approved for treating high blood pressure in adults. Paediatricians and child psychiatrists commonly prescribe it for ADHD, and for anxiety, aggression and insomnia (particularly but not exclusively in the context of ASD); in adults, it is prescribed to treat menopausal hot flushes and migraines – but all those indications are off-label. And this is the problem – given the doses involved, 25 microgram tablets only really make sense for those off-label indications, there isn't much demand for them for treating adult hypertension. So to get the TGA to approve 25 microgram clonidine tablets, you need to prove to them that clonidine is safe and effective for one of those currently off-label indications. And that will cost a lot of money, and given it is a generic medication long out of patent protection, it isn't worthwhile. Whereas Medsafe quite possibly just decided "the UK approved it for X so we will too". As a parent, both of whose children are prescribed clonidine, this annoys me – cutting tablets in half is no fun, and cutting them into quarters is even worse. Or I can get them compounded into liquid by a compounding pharmacist, which makes it easier to measure out smaller doses (I always get 25 microgram/ml), but that adds expense and time (the nearest compounding pharmacy is 15 minutes drive one way). I just wish I could get 25 microgram tablets, but they can't legally be sold in Australia–possibly I could ask our child psychiatrist to apply for special permission to import them from New Zealand, but the amount of bureaucracy involved probably isn't worth it, there's no guarantee the request would be approved, and it would be expensive (it wouldn't be covered by our national prescription drug insurance).
  - Qem 9mo ago
    > It’s not like Brazil doesn’t have its own FDA, which is much more strict than the US one, from what I know. Unless we are talking about pesticides, where Brazil is effectively dumping grounds for substances banned in EU. Every time some pesticide is forbidden in Europe, brazilian regulators are happy allowing local agribusiness import it by the ton in fire sales: https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2025/10/14/export-grade-poison-sale-of-eu-banned-pesticides-soars-as-brazil-becomes-the-worlds-top-consumer/ https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2025/10/14/export-grade-pois...
sammy_rulez 9mo ago
It's old news. There is even “And Dream of Sheep” — Grey’s Anatomy, Season 15 Episode 17. That’s the episode where they mention using tilapia fish skin to treat burns. Original U.S. air date: March 14, 2019.
- sublinear 9mo ago
  2019? I'm surprised they kept it running for that long.
  - ZeWaka 9mo ago
    It's still running - season 22 right now.
- elemdos 9mo ago
  Old news comes off dismissive. Doesn’t have to be a brand new discovery to be noteworthy.
- petesergeant 9mo ago
  And a 2017 Good Doctor episode
- elric 9mo ago
  Doesn't make it any less interesting. And in spite of it not being new, it doesn't look like it's out of the experimental stage: the article mentions it's difficult to get the tilapia skin processed and sterilized.
  - chipgap98 9mo ago
    The article is 9 years old so that may no longer be the case
primaprashant 9mo ago
They used this exact treatment in an episode of The Good Doctor, S01E06. Original air date: October 30, 2017 https://the-good-doctor.fandom.com/wiki/Not_Fake https://the-good-doctor.fandom.com/wiki/Not_Fake
- theblackknight_ 9mo ago
  I was thinking same, Jared saving that girls skin after burn.
- zekrioca 9mo ago
  Yes, but the treatment has been devised way prior to 2017.
- ZeWaka 9mo ago
  They also used it in Grey's Anatomy S15E17 (2019).
kiernanmcgowan 9mo ago
I've read Dune - I know exactly where this is going. Please do not apply sand trout directly to you skin unless you are ready to control the spice.
- DHRicoF 9mo ago
  The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it.
- jyounker 9mo ago
  The God Emperor of Brazil would be a brilliant satire. I look forward to the new fish speakers.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
01100011 9mo ago
I'm pretty sure they've done this for decades. I seem to remember someone using potato skins like 30 years ago.
- guessmyname 9mo ago
  > I'm pretty sure they've done this for decades […] Yes, the article you read is from 2017.
  - 01100011 9mo ago
    No, I'm saying I think it's even farther back than that. I think the article from 2017 is like the article from today. It's presenting something old as something novel.
aaron695 9mo ago
[dead]
vasco 9mo ago
This has been going for long enough that there's been several metastudies debunking it. Was hyped in the news around 2017. Fish skin or silver sulfadiazine had similar effects and to me are both approximating placebo from the studies I read. The fish does nothing for pain and no difference in the scarring time vs the silver ointments.
- trhway 9mo ago
  fish skin (rich in collagen) sounds like a version of collagen patch. And for collagen patch for example https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3081477/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3081477/ where despite the "Conclusion" the "Results" show that it helps (and one can also expect that collagen patching is starting point to engineering artificial skin) : Results: With two weeks of treatment, 60% of the ‘collagen group’ wounds and only 42% of the ‘conventional group’ wounds were sterile (P=0.03). Healthy granulation tissue appeared earlier over collagen-dressed wounds than over conventionally treated wounds (P=0.03). After eight weeks, 52 (87%) of ‘collagen group’ wounds and 48 (80%) of ‘conventional group’ wounds were >75% healed (P=0.21). Eight patients in the ‘collagen group’ and 12 in the ‘conventional group’ needed partial split-skin grafting (P=0.04). Collagen-treated patients enjoyed early and more subjective mobility. Conclusion: No significant better results in terms of completeness of healing of burn and chronic wounds between collagen dressing and conventional dressing were found. Collagen dressing, however, may avoid the need of skin grafting, and provides additional advantage of patients’ compliance and comfort.
  - vasco 9mo ago
    You made me go re-search for those meta studies and I can only find a brazilian one which disputes the claims but I do find a few showing benefits. I'm back to not knowing what to believe in isolation, but with results also for plasters that you shared I'm more leaning towards you being right. Thanks for sharing.
- tossaway0 9mo ago
  Totally anecdotal but I had a bad burn on my foot and I thought I could manage it with otc stuff. It kept getting worse so I went to have it checked out and was prescribed the silver cream. From one day to the next it started showing positive effects and a week and a half later I was fine. I was kicking myself for waiting so long.
fhe 9mo ago
I thought this a pretty mature technique? I have seen more than once our local vet using this technique to treat cats with large wounds -- with great results by the way. Interestingly, they too used tilapia fish skin, and not any of the more common local fish species. I wonder if there is something special about tilapia fish skin, or it was simply the species on which the technique was developed, and nobody bothered to try using other fish species.
- sublinear 9mo ago
  What's special is that tilapia is probably cheaper than even the local fish since it's farmed in massive quantities and shipped all over the world as food. If other fish skins were tried it must have been similar results.
  - worthless-trash 9mo ago
    Tilapia imports are heavily restricted to Australia, The live fish will not be allowed, they are considered "restricted noxious fish". The rules are: Illegal to Keep: You cannot keep tilapia (dead or alive), sell them, give them away, or use them as bait. Immediate Euthanasia: Humanely kill the fish as soon as you catch it. Disposal: Bury: Bury them deep and well away from the water's edge to prevent scavengers from dragging them back in or floodwaters from releasing eggs. Bin: Place them in a rubbish bin. No Filleting: You cannot take fillets and dispose of the rest; the entire fish must be destroyed. Various state departments have hotlines for reporting tilapia. There are different hotlines per state: Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) (13 25 23) New South Wales Department of Primary Industries (DPI) (1800 675 888) Victoria (VFA) Reporting hotline (13FISH or 13 34 74) Western Australia Dept. of Primary Industries & Regional Development (1800 815 507) I've had rewards for reporting them (fishing reel, free bait, etc).
    - pwagland 9mo ago
      For those that don't know why, and I didn't, the reason for this is that Tilapia are "mouth brooders", that is they keep the fertilised eggs in their mouth. So throwing away a dead female can cause these eggs to hatch, and reinfect the waters with new Tilapia.
max_ 9mo ago
TLDR; Its a fantastic substitute for bandages in the sense that you don't need to take off the fish skin everyday. Its also better are retaining moisture in the burn wounds than cotton badages. No need for antibiotics, painkillers etc Its also really cheap. Fish farms regard them as waste.
- account42 9mo ago
  > Fish farms regard them as waste. I have only seen tilapia sold whole - the skin is one of the best parts when you fry them.
  - subscribed 9mo ago
    Same here. Not with just tilapia, but pretty much every fish.
- conductr 9mo ago
  I think any farmed animal is or should have no waste. Even if it’s turned into cat food the skin is most definitely not just waste, there’s uses out there. However, if it is as cheap and readily available as cat food then that’s great for burn victims too.
- AdmiralAsshat 9mo ago
  How expensive is the sterilization process, though? That would be my primary concern if tilapia-skin bandages started to get widely available/mass-produced: that unscrupulous vendors would cut corners during sterilization, and then the burn victims would get nasty infections from remnant bacteria on the tilapia skin.
  - Scoundreller 9mo ago
    Dunno what method they use, but gamma irradiation is pretty cheap at scale
poopster 9mo ago
i saw that episode of one-piece
sva_ 9mo ago
previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14385336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14385336
RobotToaster 9mo ago
Will never be approved by the US FDA since it can't be patented.
- ZeWaka 9mo ago
  Kerecis got FDA clearance in 2013, and then approval in 2016.
  - RobotToaster 9mo ago
    That's made from cod, and it appears they chemically modified it so that it can be patented https://www.kerecis.com/kerecis-receives-u-s-patent-for-fish-skin-based-tissue-regeneration-technology/ https://www.kerecis.com/kerecis-receives-u-s-patent-for-fish...
- groundzeros2015 9mo ago
  You mean because nobody will pay the cost to go through FDA process without profit incentive?
MrDresden 9mo ago
There is an Icelandic company called Kerecis that produces these kinds of fish skin based grafts. There are some videos of some of their patient's before and after over at their webpage[0] but be warned, they might be a bit graphic for some. [0]: https://kerecis.com https://kerecis.com
- ljf 9mo ago
  Wow, those before and after videos really are amazing - while my own scars are tiny, they aremore noticeable than some of these fairly major wounds.
dgoldstein0 9mo ago
This article is from 2017 - maybe should say so in the submission title? Still, an interesting read
- dang 9mo ago
  Added above. Thanks!
ycombinatrix 9mo ago
They did this in the Netflix One Piece series (with a yellowtail though)
binsquare 9mo ago
In Chinese villages, I've seen them use fish skin, potato skin, various leaves, cooked birds nest, fish fin oil, and etc to treat open wounds instead of pure bandaging. While it's not a new technique, it's fascinating for this area to be further explored.
- interludead 9mo ago
  In a way this feels less like inventing something new and more like rediscovering and formalizing old techniques with modern safety constraints
  - screye 9mo ago
    It's important in these cases to preserve the lineage of where they came from. There's a tendency to start calling them 'western medicine' and crediting it to the person who formalized it in the west rather than the source culture where it has existed for centuries. The conversation is bit 2010, but the point still stands.
interludead 9mo ago
The fact that tilapia skin was basically waste, yet turns out to have higher collagen content, better tensile strength, and better moisture retention than human skin is kind of remarkable
jenders 9mo ago
They do this in Iceland too
motbus3 9mo ago
This is quite old news. I've heard about this more than 10 years ago at least. It has been fairly successful since the beginning and I've heard it improved quite a lot
gaptoothclan 9mo ago
great news for humans, bad news for fish
osmano807 9mo ago
In my hospital we have ample experience with another technique using polypropylene sheets for defect coverage, popularized in Brazil orthopedics as "Figueiredo's technique", which is in practice an extension of common techinques for temporary closure of abdominal wall ("Bogota's bag"). We put a transparent polypropylene sheet as skin replacement, suture it directly to the skin. We can monitor the wound and its secretions, can cover exposed tendons and bones without immediate doing microsurgical flaps. For example, we can monitor the second intention skin closure with reduced infection and analgesics use, sometimes without needing a graft at all.
- DerArzt 9mo ago
  Modern medicine is pretty metal.
- yndoendo 9mo ago
  I was informed by a pediatric doctor they also use honey bandages for burns since it is a naturally antimicrobial and assists with cooling the body.
dillydogg 9mo ago
I think one of the most interesting techniques for burn victims is using placentas. I haven't seen it too much in my current hospital system, but have seen it talked about at medical association conferences and think it's pretty exciting. Here is a gift link for an article about them in the New York Times from about a year ago. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/08/well/placenta-donations-burns-wounds.html?unlocked_article_code=1.GVA.BZO6.x6uJ7CIk223G&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/08/well/placenta-donations-b...
highhedgehog 9mo ago
My nephew had multiple heart surgery, and after the last one, he kept having the wound release liquids. For months, they just medicated the wound regularly hoping it would solve by itself. At last, they decided for a cleaning surgery, and a pediatric specialist came from Rome and apparently brought something like "fish sheets" to "cover the wound while it heals.
kylehotchkiss 9mo ago
Is this a stem cell thing or a growth factor/morphogens thing?
modeless 9mo ago
I hope they verify that the recipients are not allergic to fish first. Would be nice to get a synthetic version for that reason.
culi 9mo ago
tangentially related: before penicillin was formally discovered, soldiers in WW1 would use moldy slices of bread to treat their wounds (Penicillium being the most common bread mold). This or similar practices of using mold on wounds seems to date back thousands of years
nextaccountic 9mo ago
> Mar 3, 2017 Title needs (2017)
SilentM68 9mo ago
Hmm, I remember seeing something like this mentioned in the show The Good Doctor. I forget the episode, but it deals with a patient who suffers severe burns in a bus crash and receives an experimental treatment using fish skin to aid in healing and minimize scarring. I never really felt comfortable with animal tissue being grafted to human skin. I don't believe animal tissue can be totally cleansed of contaminants. I'd rather feel more confortable with synthetic skin grafting. The movie, Darkman (1990) comes to mind.

288 points by kaycebasques 9mo ago

(2017)

> In the US, animal-based skin substitutes require levels of scrutiny from the Food and Drug Administration and animal rights groups that can drive up costs, Lee said. Given the substantial supply of donated human skin, tilapia skin is unlikely to arrive at American hospitals anytime soon. This reminds me of Milton Friedman’s arguments against the FDA.

lukebitts 9mo ago
I wonder what’s the difference between countries that drives that. It’s not like Brazil doesn’t have its own FDA, which is much more strict than the US one, from what I know. Maybe some kind of lobbying? Or are animal rights group that much stronger?
- MattGaiser 9mo ago
  I imagine it is about this: > But Brazil lacks the human skin, pig skin, and artificial alternatives that are widely available in the US. This is not an improvement on existing methods (it may end up being, but that is not the motivation) but rather a case of it being all they have to work with. Tilapia skin is probably better than no skin at all.
  - hu3 9mo ago
    > This is not an improvement on existing methods... a case of it being all they have to work with. But the article says Tilapia skin is better in multiple aspects: > "We got a great surprise when we saw that the amount of collagen proteins, types 1 and 3, which are very important for scarring, exist in large quantities in tilapia skin, even more than in human skin and other skins," Maciel said. "Another factor we discovered is that the amount of tension, of resistance in tilapia skin is much greater than in human skin. Also the amount of moisture."
    - dmurray 9mo ago
      It says it's different to human skin in multiple aspects. Do I need more collagen or more moisture in my skin? I would expect evolution made some pretty good choices around default human skin for typical human activities, and if more moisture was obviously good, I would already have it. Maybe tilapia skin is better for people who spend 24 hours a day swimming in lakes.
      - hu3 9mo ago
        > It says it's different to human skin in multiple aspects. No it says "even more than in human skin and other skins". Not different. > Do I need more collagen or more moisture in my skin? For this context? Yes? Clearly the article answers that already. I even included in my first reply but you'll have a third chance to read it: > ...which are very important for scarring... And your attempt to move the goal post fails miserably as well. Or do you think humans evolved to perfection by thinking this: > I would expect evolution made some pretty good choices around default human skin for typical human activities, and if more moisture was obviously good, I would already have it. I don't think you are debating in good faith. Good luck.
- skissane 9mo ago
  I was having a conversation about this with my father-a retired pharmaceutical industry executive-a few weeks back, about why certain generic prescription medication formulations were unavailable in Australia yet sold in New Zealand. He explained to me that the Australian pharmaceutical regulator (the TGA) and its New Zealand equivalent (Medsafe) had very different regulatory philosophies. Medsafe, if a major international regulator (such as the US FDA or the EU’s EMA) had already approved something, they’ll just approve it too (“if it is good enough for them it is good enough for us”); the TGA’s attitude was very different, just because the FDA or EMA had approved it didn’t mean they automatically would, they wanted to analyse the safety data for themselves and make up their own mind. For blockbuster patented drugs, the extra regulatory cost of Australia was worth it, but for the long tail of miscellaneous generic formulations, the extra cost of dealing with the TGA could make some of them financially nonviable.
  - tehjoker 9mo ago
    Medsafe's strategy only works so long as there is at least one stringent regulator though.
    - Auracle 9mo ago
      I would think for a country like Australia a more moderate approach would be to approve things that were approved by other countries and have been in use for some amount of time - say, 5 years or so - apart from the things they directly approve.
      - skissane 9mo ago
        The actual drug my father and I were discussing was clonidine. In the UK and New Zealand, they sell 25 microgram clonidine tablets; in Australia, the smallest dose on sale is 100 micrograms. Clonidine is a very old drug – it was released back in the 1960s. The risks involved are very well understood (arguably the biggest risk is fatal overdoses, but patient/parent education is the accepted mitigation strategy.) The issue is, in Australia, it is only approved for treating high blood pressure in adults. Paediatricians and child psychiatrists commonly prescribe it for ADHD, and for anxiety, aggression and insomnia (particularly but not exclusively in the context of ASD); in adults, it is prescribed to treat menopausal hot flushes and migraines – but all those indications are off-label. And this is the problem – given the doses involved, 25 microgram tablets only really make sense for those off-label indications, there isn't much demand for them for treating adult hypertension. So to get the TGA to approve 25 microgram clonidine tablets, you need to prove to them that clonidine is safe and effective for one of those currently off-label indications. And that will cost a lot of money, and given it is a generic medication long out of patent protection, it isn't worthwhile. Whereas Medsafe quite possibly just decided "the UK approved it for X so we will too". As a parent, both of whose children are prescribed clonidine, this annoys me – cutting tablets in half is no fun, and cutting them into quarters is even worse. Or I can get them compounded into liquid by a compounding pharmacist, which makes it easier to measure out smaller doses (I always get 25 microgram/ml), but that adds expense and time (the nearest compounding pharmacy is 15 minutes drive one way). I just wish I could get 25 microgram tablets, but they can't legally be sold in Australia–possibly I could ask our child psychiatrist to apply for special permission to import them from New Zealand, but the amount of bureaucracy involved probably isn't worth it, there's no guarantee the request would be approved, and it would be expensive (it wouldn't be covered by our national prescription drug insurance).
- Qem 9mo ago
  > It’s not like Brazil doesn’t have its own FDA, which is much more strict than the US one, from what I know. Unless we are talking about pesticides, where Brazil is effectively dumping grounds for substances banned in EU. Every time some pesticide is forbidden in Europe, brazilian regulators are happy allowing local agribusiness import it by the ton in fire sales: https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2025/10/14/export-grade-poison-sale-of-eu-banned-pesticides-soars-as-brazil-becomes-the-worlds-top-consumer/ https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2025/10/14/export-grade-pois...

sammy_rulez 9mo ago

It's old news. There is even “And Dream of Sheep” — Grey’s Anatomy, Season 15 Episode 17. That’s the episode where they mention using tilapia fish skin to treat burns. Original U.S. air date: March 14, 2019.

sublinear 9mo ago
2019? I'm surprised they kept it running for that long.
- ZeWaka 9mo ago
  It's still running - season 22 right now.
elemdos 9mo ago
Old news comes off dismissive. Doesn’t have to be a brand new discovery to be noteworthy.
petesergeant 9mo ago
And a 2017 Good Doctor episode
elric 9mo ago
Doesn't make it any less interesting. And in spite of it not being new, it doesn't look like it's out of the experimental stage: the article mentions it's difficult to get the tilapia skin processed and sterilized.
- chipgap98 9mo ago
  The article is 9 years old so that may no longer be the case

primaprashant 9mo ago

They used this exact treatment in an episode of The Good Doctor, S01E06. Original air date: October 30, 2017 https://the-good-doctor.fandom.com/wiki/Not_Fake https://the-good-doctor.fandom.com/wiki/Not_Fake

theblackknight_ 9mo ago
I was thinking same, Jared saving that girls skin after burn.
zekrioca 9mo ago
Yes, but the treatment has been devised way prior to 2017.
ZeWaka 9mo ago
They also used it in Grey's Anatomy S15E17 (2019).

kiernanmcgowan 9mo ago

I've read Dune - I know exactly where this is going. Please do not apply sand trout directly to you skin unless you are ready to control the spice.

DHRicoF 9mo ago
The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it.
jyounker 9mo ago
The God Emperor of Brazil would be a brilliant satire. I look forward to the new fish speakers.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]

01100011 9mo ago

I'm pretty sure they've done this for decades. I seem to remember someone using potato skins like 30 years ago.

guessmyname 9mo ago
> I'm pretty sure they've done this for decades […] Yes, the article you read is from 2017.
- 01100011 9mo ago
  No, I'm saying I think it's even farther back than that. I think the article from 2017 is like the article from today. It's presenting something old as something novel.

aaron695 9mo ago

[dead]

vasco 9mo ago

This has been going for long enough that there's been several metastudies debunking it. Was hyped in the news around 2017. Fish skin or silver sulfadiazine had similar effects and to me are both approximating placebo from the studies I read. The fish does nothing for pain and no difference in the scarring time vs the silver ointments.

trhway 9mo ago
fish skin (rich in collagen) sounds like a version of collagen patch. And for collagen patch for example https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3081477/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3081477/ where despite the "Conclusion" the "Results" show that it helps (and one can also expect that collagen patching is starting point to engineering artificial skin) : Results: With two weeks of treatment, 60% of the ‘collagen group’ wounds and only 42% of the ‘conventional group’ wounds were sterile (P=0.03). Healthy granulation tissue appeared earlier over collagen-dressed wounds than over conventionally treated wounds (P=0.03). After eight weeks, 52 (87%) of ‘collagen group’ wounds and 48 (80%) of ‘conventional group’ wounds were >75% healed (P=0.21). Eight patients in the ‘collagen group’ and 12 in the ‘conventional group’ needed partial split-skin grafting (P=0.04). Collagen-treated patients enjoyed early and more subjective mobility. Conclusion: No significant better results in terms of completeness of healing of burn and chronic wounds between collagen dressing and conventional dressing were found. Collagen dressing, however, may avoid the need of skin grafting, and provides additional advantage of patients’ compliance and comfort.
- vasco 9mo ago
  You made me go re-search for those meta studies and I can only find a brazilian one which disputes the claims but I do find a few showing benefits. I'm back to not knowing what to believe in isolation, but with results also for plasters that you shared I'm more leaning towards you being right. Thanks for sharing.
tossaway0 9mo ago
Totally anecdotal but I had a bad burn on my foot and I thought I could manage it with otc stuff. It kept getting worse so I went to have it checked out and was prescribed the silver cream. From one day to the next it started showing positive effects and a week and a half later I was fine. I was kicking myself for waiting so long.

fhe 9mo ago

I thought this a pretty mature technique? I have seen more than once our local vet using this technique to treat cats with large wounds -- with great results by the way. Interestingly, they too used tilapia fish skin, and not any of the more common local fish species. I wonder if there is something special about tilapia fish skin, or it was simply the species on which the technique was developed, and nobody bothered to try using other fish species.

sublinear 9mo ago
What's special is that tilapia is probably cheaper than even the local fish since it's farmed in massive quantities and shipped all over the world as food. If other fish skins were tried it must have been similar results.
- worthless-trash 9mo ago
  Tilapia imports are heavily restricted to Australia, The live fish will not be allowed, they are considered "restricted noxious fish". The rules are: Illegal to Keep: You cannot keep tilapia (dead or alive), sell them, give them away, or use them as bait. Immediate Euthanasia: Humanely kill the fish as soon as you catch it. Disposal: Bury: Bury them deep and well away from the water's edge to prevent scavengers from dragging them back in or floodwaters from releasing eggs. Bin: Place them in a rubbish bin. No Filleting: You cannot take fillets and dispose of the rest; the entire fish must be destroyed. Various state departments have hotlines for reporting tilapia. There are different hotlines per state: Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) (13 25 23) New South Wales Department of Primary Industries (DPI) (1800 675 888) Victoria (VFA) Reporting hotline (13FISH or 13 34 74) Western Australia Dept. of Primary Industries & Regional Development (1800 815 507) I've had rewards for reporting them (fishing reel, free bait, etc).
  - pwagland 9mo ago
    For those that don't know why, and I didn't, the reason for this is that Tilapia are "mouth brooders", that is they keep the fertilised eggs in their mouth. So throwing away a dead female can cause these eggs to hatch, and reinfect the waters with new Tilapia.

max_ 9mo ago

TLDR; Its a fantastic substitute for bandages in the sense that you don't need to take off the fish skin everyday. Its also better are retaining moisture in the burn wounds than cotton badages. No need for antibiotics, painkillers etc Its also really cheap. Fish farms regard them as waste.

account42 9mo ago
> Fish farms regard them as waste. I have only seen tilapia sold whole - the skin is one of the best parts when you fry them.
- subscribed 9mo ago
  Same here. Not with just tilapia, but pretty much every fish.
conductr 9mo ago
I think any farmed animal is or should have no waste. Even if it’s turned into cat food the skin is most definitely not just waste, there’s uses out there. However, if it is as cheap and readily available as cat food then that’s great for burn victims too.
AdmiralAsshat 9mo ago
How expensive is the sterilization process, though? That would be my primary concern if tilapia-skin bandages started to get widely available/mass-produced: that unscrupulous vendors would cut corners during sterilization, and then the burn victims would get nasty infections from remnant bacteria on the tilapia skin.
- Scoundreller 9mo ago
  Dunno what method they use, but gamma irradiation is pretty cheap at scale

poopster 9mo ago

i saw that episode of one-piece

sva_ 9mo ago

previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14385336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14385336

RobotToaster 9mo ago

Will never be approved by the US FDA since it can't be patented.

ZeWaka 9mo ago
Kerecis got FDA clearance in 2013, and then approval in 2016.
- RobotToaster 9mo ago
  That's made from cod, and it appears they chemically modified it so that it can be patented https://www.kerecis.com/kerecis-receives-u-s-patent-for-fish-skin-based-tissue-regeneration-technology/ https://www.kerecis.com/kerecis-receives-u-s-patent-for-fish...
groundzeros2015 9mo ago
You mean because nobody will pay the cost to go through FDA process without profit incentive?

MrDresden 9mo ago

There is an Icelandic company called Kerecis that produces these kinds of fish skin based grafts. There are some videos of some of their patient's before and after over at their webpage[0] but be warned, they might be a bit graphic for some. [0]: https://kerecis.com https://kerecis.com

ljf 9mo ago
Wow, those before and after videos really are amazing - while my own scars are tiny, they aremore noticeable than some of these fairly major wounds.

dgoldstein0 9mo ago

This article is from 2017 - maybe should say so in the submission title? Still, an interesting read

dang 9mo ago
Added above. Thanks!

ycombinatrix 9mo ago

They did this in the Netflix One Piece series (with a yellowtail though)

binsquare 9mo ago

In Chinese villages, I've seen them use fish skin, potato skin, various leaves, cooked birds nest, fish fin oil, and etc to treat open wounds instead of pure bandaging. While it's not a new technique, it's fascinating for this area to be further explored.

interludead 9mo ago
In a way this feels less like inventing something new and more like rediscovering and formalizing old techniques with modern safety constraints
- screye 9mo ago
  It's important in these cases to preserve the lineage of where they came from. There's a tendency to start calling them 'western medicine' and crediting it to the person who formalized it in the west rather than the source culture where it has existed for centuries. The conversation is bit 2010, but the point still stands.

interludead 9mo ago

The fact that tilapia skin was basically waste, yet turns out to have higher collagen content, better tensile strength, and better moisture retention than human skin is kind of remarkable

jenders 9mo ago

They do this in Iceland too

motbus3 9mo ago

This is quite old news. I've heard about this more than 10 years ago at least. It has been fairly successful since the beginning and I've heard it improved quite a lot

gaptoothclan 9mo ago

great news for humans, bad news for fish

osmano807 9mo ago

In my hospital we have ample experience with another technique using polypropylene sheets for defect coverage, popularized in Brazil orthopedics as "Figueiredo's technique", which is in practice an extension of common techinques for temporary closure of abdominal wall ("Bogota's bag"). We put a transparent polypropylene sheet as skin replacement, suture it directly to the skin. We can monitor the wound and its secretions, can cover exposed tendons and bones without immediate doing microsurgical flaps. For example, we can monitor the second intention skin closure with reduced infection and analgesics use, sometimes without needing a graft at all.

DerArzt 9mo ago
Modern medicine is pretty metal.
yndoendo 9mo ago
I was informed by a pediatric doctor they also use honey bandages for burns since it is a naturally antimicrobial and assists with cooling the body.

dillydogg 9mo ago

I think one of the most interesting techniques for burn victims is using placentas. I haven't seen it too much in my current hospital system, but have seen it talked about at medical association conferences and think it's pretty exciting. Here is a gift link for an article about them in the New York Times from about a year ago. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/08/well/placenta-donations-burns-wounds.html?unlocked_article_code=1.GVA.BZO6.x6uJ7CIk223G&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/08/well/placenta-donations-b...

highhedgehog 9mo ago

My nephew had multiple heart surgery, and after the last one, he kept having the wound release liquids. For months, they just medicated the wound regularly hoping it would solve by itself. At last, they decided for a cleaning surgery, and a pediatric specialist came from Rome and apparently brought something like "fish sheets" to "cover the wound while it heals.

kylehotchkiss 9mo ago

Is this a stem cell thing or a growth factor/morphogens thing?

modeless 9mo ago

I hope they verify that the recipients are not allergic to fish first. Would be nice to get a synthetic version for that reason.

culi 9mo ago

tangentially related: before penicillin was formally discovered, soldiers in WW1 would use moldy slices of bread to treat their wounds (Penicillium being the most common bread mold). This or similar practices of using mold on wounds seems to date back thousands of years

nextaccountic 9mo ago

> Mar 3, 2017 Title needs (2017)

SilentM68 9mo ago

Hmm, I remember seeing something like this mentioned in the show The Good Doctor. I forget the episode, but it deals with a patient who suffers severe burns in a bus crash and receives an experimental treatment using fish skin to aid in healing and minimize scarring. I never really felt comfortable with animal tissue being grafted to human skin. I don't believe animal tissue can be totally cleansed of contaminants. I'd rather feel more confortable with synthetic skin grafting. The movie, Darkman (1990) comes to mind.