Maggot therapy for difficult wounds

Inside Health

BBC

Health & Fitness, Science

4.4 • 575 Ratings

🗓️ 17 January 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The rise of antibiotic resistance means that we need alternatives to fight infections - and some healthcare professionals are turning to maggot therapy to help clean up wounds. They might be treating people living with diabetes who can experience a loss of sensation in their feet because of high blood sugar levels. Damage to their blood vessels can also slow down healing. Melanie Rix Taylor from Swansea has type 1 diabetes and had a quarter of her foot amputated because of an infection. When the skin around the wound started to die she was offered maggot therapy. After just a few days the larvae placed on her foot in a small bag - a bit like a teabag - digested the dead skin, helping to promote healing. Her Podiatrist at Morriston hospital Ros Thomas explains how she's used maggots hundreds of times, with great success.

The larvae of the greenbottle fly species Lucilia sericata are supplied to the NHS on prescription with an average cost of £200-£300 from BioMonde in Bridgend. James visits their fly room with entomologist Micah Flores, helping him to collect some of the fly eggs which are then thoroughly cleaned and prepared so they can then be used on patients. As well as consuming dead tissue, the larvae also produce anti-microbial secretions and help to promote healing. Professor Yamni Nigam from Swansea University - who's advised television programmes like Casualty about storylines on maggot therapy - is a big fan of the creatures which have a long history of being medically useful, long before scientists found the scientific proof to support their use. She wants to help people to get over their initial disgust so that they can be used more widely, instead of as a last resort.

Photo credit: Maggot/BioMonde

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I'm Ed Gamble, host of another BBC podcast,
0:05.4	The Traitors Uncloaked. But my show is available only on BBC Sounds, just like Ellis and John's
0:10.6	Saturday bonus episodes, the Pop Top Ten podcast with Scott Mills and Ryland, and comedy specials
0:16.2	from the likes of Harriet Kemsley, Susie Ruffel and Rommas Sh Ranganathan. However, and maybe I'm biased,
0:21.9	it's really all about the traitors uncloked. So for a whole bunch of exclusive scoops and podcasts,
0:27.4	listen only on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. I could possibly be in the last
0:36.6	couple of years of my life without those maggots and I don't think
0:41.4	I'm being dramatic saying that and the chances are if I'd had further amputations going up that
0:48.6	leg which would have been a high chance of that happening had I not had the maggots put on, then I might not be here today.
0:57.9	Melanie is a maggot superfan after watching these larvae eat the decaying flesh from her foot.
1:05.8	Are you a fan? I don't know if I am yet. It sounds quite yucky, quite icky, but we're going to get
1:10.7	quite up close and personal by the end of today.
1:13.3	Because we're going to chat to Melanie in a lot more detail in a bit.
1:16.2	We're going to meet scientists that are trying to unlock the powers of these maggots.
1:20.4	Because there's a real need here because of the rise of antibiotic resistant infections,
1:25.7	those that are getting harder to treat, those superbugs are
1:27.8	needing other forms of therapy, which includes maggots. But first, what we're going to do
1:34.0	is see where the maggots are made, how they're produced, how they're made safe as a medicine.
1:38.8	So I've come to a rather innocuous looking warehouse in Bridge End in South Wales.
1:46.3	This is a maggot farm.
1:51.2	Hello, my name's Micah Flores.
1:55.8	I'm an R&D research project manager here at Biomond in South Wales.
	...

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