- Doctors at Hamilton Health Sciences in Ontario used exosomes – cell particles that carry healing signals – to treat 18-year-old Kaitlin Jeffrey’s third-degree facial burns, in what they call a world-first for a human burn patient.
- Jeffrey, a Western University student, was burned at a house fire in London, Ontario in December and faced skin grafts and permanent scarring; by late April her face had healed.
- Health Canada approved the treatment on compassionate grounds; the surgeon hopes the result speeds development of exosome therapy, which is currently very expensive.
Doctors were ready to graft new skin onto Kaitlin Jeffrey’s burned face. But instead they injected a trillion tiny healing particles – a world-first for a burn patient – and watched her face heal itself.
Kaitlin’s hair and skin caught fire during a blaze at a party in London, Ontario, leaving the Western University student with third-degree burns that threatened permanent scarring and disfigurement.
Doctors at Victoria Hospital in London were sure she would need skin grafts and bear the scarring that ultimately comes with them. She was transferred to the burn unit at Hamilton Health Sciences for surgery.
But there, Dr. Marc Jeschke chose a different path – healing the burns rather than covering them. He opted for exosomes, tiny particles released by cells that carry the signal for powerful healing responses. They are usually harvested from lab-cultured cells, and Kaitlin’s burns were so severe she needed a trillion of them, sourced from the United States.
“My vision for Kaitlin was to avoid skin graft surgery to her face and neck at any cost,” Jeschke, a burn surgeon and vice president of research and innovation at HHS, told CTV.
“You can do the best graft on the planet, but you won’t return the skin to normal,” he said. “And, for a young person, a skin graft to the face and neck can be absolutely devastating.”
Exosomes had shown promise for wound healing in human trials, but for burns they’d only been studied in animals. Jeschke filed an emergency application to Health Canada to try them on compassionate grounds; with Jeffrey and her parents on board, regulators gave the green light, and the injections began. Her two treatments took place several days apart.
The response outran everyone’s expectations. Kaitlin, who was burned in December, had a fully healed face by late April – recovering faster, the hospital said, than another young student whose burns from the same fire were serious but less severe. She will still need skin grafts for remaining scarring on her neck.
Jeschke is hoping the result rapidly accelerates the development of exosome treatment – now very expensive – for burn patients across Canada and beyond.
