Surviving cancer is physically and emotionally exhausting. But for many patients, beating the disease itself is just the first hurdle. A second ordeal comes from living with the fungating tumor wounds that accompany various cancers. Aside from the pain they inflict, these wounds often emit a strong and offensive odor. Not only does going into public become potentially embarrassing, but it also can be extremely depressing when even close family members are repulsed by the smell.
At the 2010 Symposium on Advanced Wound Care (SAWC) and the Wound Healing Society (WHS), an international conference drawing clinicians from all over the globe, which was held April 17-20 in Orlando, a clinician presented a series of cases illustrating the benefits of MEDIHONEY® dressings not only in the treatment of fungating tumor wounds but in eliminating their odor and the stigma that goes with it. MEDIHONEY® dressings are a unique key line of products whose active ingredient is medical-grade active Leptospermum honey (ALH), indigenous to New Zealand, that can succeed in alleviating wounds when other treatments have failed. Princeton-based Derma Sciences, Inc. owns the global rights to MEDIHONEY.
Malodor in a fungating tumor wound has been attributed to the presence of anaerobic organisms that thrive in areas of superficial and deep necrosis. The odor emanates from the unstable fatty acids released as a metabolic byproduct of the anaerobic bacteria. Among its other effects, MEDIHONEY has been reported to effectively reduce and even eradicate odor in acute and chronic wounds as a result to the preferential metabolism of honey's glucose, which produces lactic acid, instead of amino acids, which produce malodorous ammonia, amines and sulfur compounds.