Critical Analysis About Medical Advances

Medical advances have now made it possible to use the flesh of another species to rapidly decrease the time it takes for burn victims skin to heal. “Marine Collagen Peptides from the skin of Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus): Characterization and wound healing evaluation”. Written by Zhang Hu, Pengzhi Hong conceived and designed the experiments; Zhang Hu and Ping Yang performed the experiments; Chunxia Zhou and Sidong Li analyzed the data. In this article, Zhang Hu completed an evaluation in the wound healing, as well as explained how and why using Tilapia scales is beneficial to patients with burns. Nile Tilapia is a fish that is artificially created.

The fish produces a layer of marine collagen peptides on their scales. Marine collagen peptides are a byproduct of chemical and enzymatic hydrolysis. Amino acids are composed of these peptides which was analyzed by infrared spectropy to look at the structure make up. To evaluate the wound healing process, vitro and vivo experiments were made. In the experiment, the author and his colleagues took rabbits with deep partial-thickness scald wounds and placed collagen peptides, tilapia scales, on their skin. Zhang starts the research article by talking about how people are evolving and living more of a fast pace of life. There has been an increase in people being admitted to the hospital with burns varying from mild to severe. Burns cause extreme economic problems with patients as well as leaving an impact on their loved ones. Burns are typically treated utilizing a wide variety of drugs, from using silver sulfadizine to mafenid acetate solution. There are several disadvantages from using these medications, such as severe side effects, high cost, and poor treatment effects on wounds and the healing formation. Treatment has put many people in a bind financially.

Zhang and many other scientists wanted to do their own research and testing to improve their patients’ quality of life during and after the treatment. Zhang tested the fish scales and stated “From the amino acid composition, the majority of residues in MCPs were hydrophilic such as glycine, glutamic acid, arginine, aspartic acid, lysine and serine, which accounted for over 58% of the total residue”. Hydrophilic in the fish scales could potentially improve the compatibility between the tissues of each human, allowing patients to accept a graft from the tilapia without having an immune reaction. To analyze the scales, Zhang used infrared spectroscopy to determine types of proteins, polypeptides, and the structure make-up of the fish scales. During the wound healing process, the keratinocyte cells, which are part of the make-up of the fish, promoted the wound to close together. Zhang called it the re-epithelization process. The rabbits were randomly divided into three groups, including model control, positive control and MCPs groups. There were 16 in each group, half girls and half boys. All the three groups of rabbits were subjected to the deep partial-thickness scald. Moist scald ointment was used as the positive control drug.

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The model control group was not treated after scalding. The positive control and Marine Collagen groups were treated once daily for 28 days. The results from using fish scales demonstrated that the first seven days of wound healing rates were negative, due to fluid exudation from the tissues, and it increased with no significant change in healing. Within eleven days, there was a significant difference in the wound healing rate. The fish scales increased the healing rate dramatically. The rabbits tested with Tilapia had almost completely healed by day fourteen, the other half of rabbits who were tested with other solutions were just starting the healing process. Overall, the histological findings showed that applying Tilapia skin had beneficial effects on the pathological repair of tissue impairment and enriched wound healing. Zhang defined the burn classification as superficial, superficial partial-thickness, deep partial-thickness, full-thickness, or subdermal burns by depth.

It typically takes three to six weeks or more to completely heal the deep partial- thickness wound without burn care. Every burn will result in a scar formation. Wound healing has four phases called the biological process; hemostasis, inflammation, proliferation, and remodeling. In the study, Zhan found that the skin of tilapia could accelerate the healing process, and improve the healing effect of skin scald wounds in rabbits by primarily reducing inflammation, promoting granulation tissue formation, and facilitating rapid proliferation of the outer layer skin cells, endothelial cells and fibroblasts. However, the molecular mechanism remains difficult to fully explain. The author Zhang was very organized and I found it to be easy to follow. The abstract portion of the article was effective in drawing in the reader’s attention. The text was summarized clearly and sufficiently. The analysis was not like reading an essay. It had separate bits of analysis that brought everything together. Each part of the analysis is supporting the thesis. The ending of this article was clear and summed up the facts in how people with burns will benefit better in this new treatment process. The intention of this article was to explain the make-up of tilapia skin and how the chemical proteins on the fish scales will help patients by speeding up their burn recovery process, and benefit the patient financially, as well making it less painful for the patient.

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