When the first Ukrainian soldiers were injured in Russia’s war against Ukraine, Kyiv orthopedist Volodymyr Oksymets knew his knowledge in treating traumas will soon become useful.
So in August 2014 Oksymets, who has experience in treating Soviet-Afghan war veterans, paired with Ilaya medical clinic and launched Biotech Rehabilitation – a project that helps Ukrainian soldiers regenerate bones, muscles and skin using an innovative technique involving stem cells.
The technique that grows new tissues from a person’s own cells to replace traumatized bones or skin is certified and used in the United States, according to the Ilaya clinic CEO Oleksiy Shershniov.
Ilaya has been applying the technique to paying patients, while the Biotech Rehabilitation initiative raises money to help the wounded soldiers for free. So far the clinic has grown new tissues for 60 paid patients and 25 soldiers.
“We have the resources to grow a bone anew,” says Shershniov. “It’s not because we are the only ones who are that smart; we just have a lab that meets the requirements.”
Building the lab cost the clinic $3.5 million in 2012.
For one soldier, the clinic grew a 15-centimeter bone, a proud achievement a for the group.
“In traditional medicine he would have had an amputation,” Shershniov says.
Oleksandr Pidkolany, a military vehicle driver, had refused to have his ankle amputated four times and went through 19 surgeries. Biotech restored his foot and today Pidkolany can walk again.
The cost for all the procedures is $10,000 – $12,000, while a similar treatment in the U.S. costs roughly $100,000, according to the Ukrainian clinic. Treatment is free for the soldiers. The costs are covered by the volunteer fundraising People’s Project and private donors.
The technology of restoring a bone is enabled by the natural abilities of stem cells, which can change into specialized cell types. This cellular material is stored in bone marrow and body fat.
The peculiarity of these cells is that they restore vessels and muscles around the bone. “These cells are universal – they know what to do by themselves,” Shershniov says.
To grow new tissue, doctors take a sample of the patient’s cells and multiply them in a sterile laboratory designed to boost cell growth.
After the cells are multiplied, surgeons insert bone plates as a framework in the place of a missing bone to shape its future replacement. Then this frame is populated with cells from the lab, which begin to transform into bone cells.
It takes six months to multiply the cells, implant them into the wound, and regenerate a bone. A sample test of the regenerated bone is identical with the patient’s natural bones, and only an X-ray can show there was an intrusion.
Mykhailo Maistrenko, who took part in defending the Donetsk Airport, had his collarbone smashed in fighting. Biotech regenerated the bone.
“Now he does pull-ups and push-ups,” Shershniov says proudly. “He went to the war again.”
To help soldiers with deep burns Ilaya clinic and Kyiv City Clinic Hospital have launched Skin Bank based on the same technology of stem cells. Five soldiers with burns were already treated with the money raised by volunteers.
“The doctors in the state hospitals don’t have such technology. They perform a surgery and say that the bone will grow. But then it doesn’t happen,” Shershniov says.
The government and state clinics have yet to notice and support Ilaya’s initiative, Shershniov says. The state hospitals, he says, reluctantly send patients to Ilaya and sometimes talk them out of this opportunity.
However, Shershniov hopes that the state will eventually participate in funding the soldiers’ rehabilitation with stem cells.
“But while they are deciding something there, the guys are losing hands and feet,” he says.
To donate money for rehabilitation visit People’s Project website www.peoplesproject.com/en/biotech/ or Biotech website www.bio-tech.shershnyov.com/?lang=en. Hr 4.5 million was already raised.
Kyiv Post staff writer Yuliana Romanyshyn can be reached at [email protected].
