I had a few patients who started coming to me with keloids. The population around the hospital in Detroit is majority African American, and I noticed that 15% to 20% of patients were not presenting with keloids after having incisions in the head and neck.
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October 2018I started off with a clinical question and was able to do a quick epidemiology search looking at the incidence of keloids after head and neck surgery.
Henry Ford researcher Maria Worsham, PhD, just happened to have some space and a methylation array. I asked her the essential clinician research question: What can we do to better understand this condition, and how can we use the bench to help us? She told me to give her as many samples as I could, and we would put them into the array and look at the condition from an epigenetic perspective.
After that, I developed a five-year plan, which included trying to get funding for research.
Currently, there are no published studies on keloid exosomes. Preliminary data from our research shows the potential contribution of exosomes in keloid development. We believe this data could eventually open the door to novel exosome-based keloid therapies.”
If you would like to make a gift to help support keloid research and patients who need treatment, please contact the Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital chief development officer at ksula1@hfhs.org.
Keloid Fast Facts:
- More than 11 million people in the world suffer from keloids.
- 425,000 clinic visits in the United States are associated with keloids.
- Clinical outcomes for the treatment of keloids are disappointing, with high recurrence rates.
- There are no FDA-approved therapies for keloids.