SAINT PAUL, Minn. — Brutal winters, it's what we're used to here in Minnesota, and all that cold can lead to frostbite.
This week the Food and Drug Administration approved a first-of-its-kind drug to treat severe frostbite.
The FDA approved the Aurlymyn (iloprost) injection to treat severe frostbite in adults.
“This approval provides patients with the first-ever treatment option for severe frostbite,” an FDA spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday.
“Having this new option provides physicians with a tool that will help prevent the life-changing amputation of one’s frostbitten fingers or toes,” said the statement
At Regions Hospital doctors see some of the worst frostbite cases imaginable.
Their burn center doctors are often faced with difficult decisions when it comes to a patient’s fingers and toes.
"If you lose your thumb that's a life-changing injury,” Dr. Aleandra Lacey says.
Dr. Lacey says this new medication will help doctors save more of those fingers and toes.
“When frostbite sets in our blood vessels in our hands and feet get narrower and narrower and eventually ice crystals can form in that tissue if it gets too cold. The ice crystals can damage tissues and also the blood vessels themselves. It’s like having tiny blood clots in those vessels and it prevents any blood from getting to that tissue to recover. With this medication it makes the blood vessels get wider and allows more blood to be delivered to the tissue to heal,” Dr. Lacey says.
Doctors at Regions Hospital are hoping to have several doses of this new drug ready to go before next Winter.
They say in a typical winter they might see a few dozen patients who could benefit from this new drug, and some of them may be able to keep their fingers and toes because of it.
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