A Florida-based Surgeon has created medical history by regenerating a mutilated finger.
Paul Halpern, a 30-year-old jockey from New Jersey, was feeding his horse when the animal mistook his index finger for a cookie and chomped down a significant part of it. However, Halpern acted fast and grabbed the fingertip from the horse's mouth before it could swallow it, CBS Local reported.
Carrying his detached fingertip in a zip-lock bag, Halpern rushed to the hospital. But doctors said they had little hope of repairing it.
However, Dr Eugenio Rodriguez of the Deerfield Beach Outpatient Surgical Center, assured Halpern that he can fix the finger without performing a surgery.
During the treatment, known as xenograft implantation, Dr Rodriguez used bladder tissue of a pig to support and fix the detached piece to the rest. The procedure helped regenerate tissues and fingernail.
The treatment involved applying a powder made of a pig bladder to the wound every day, WFLX.com reported.
"[It's] A certain powder, dust, that you sprinkle on your finger every other day. You wrap it up, and long story short it grew back the majority. If it was an inch gone, it grew back three-quarters of an inch, and I'm quite happy," Halpern, who continues the treatment easily at home, told WLX.com.
Dr Rodriguez said he has been using the powder since the past three years. While explaining the mechanism, he told WFLX that the powder "stimulates your body to attract your stem cells, and then the stem cells start producing the tissue that is missing."
A complete recovery takes only nine to 12 weeks, the doctor told CBS Local.
