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• Health and Medicine
• Science and Technology
• 05 / 31 / 2007

This was announced on May 30 by directors of the Cuban Center of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), the only institution that has created this one of a kind product in the world.

HEBERPROT-P, previously known as CITOPROT-P, speeds the healing of diabetic foot ulcers and reduces the risk of amputation.

Ernesto Lopez Mola, head of the CIGB Business Development Department, said that the drug has been distributed to all the most important Angeology services of the main municipalities of each province in Cuba.

Lopez Mola added that as part of the project to make this drug available to all those in need, the Ministry of Public Health created a group of specialists that will be holding workshops on the correct application of HEBERPROT-P during the moth of June.

This group of specialists is formed by epidemic and angeology specialists and researchers of the CIGB.

The Diabetes Mellitus is currently a serious health problem. Between 174 million and 190 millions of people around the world suffered from it, of which 10 to 15 percent suffered from foot ulcer; a similar percentage required amputations. Even half of these patients have to go undergo a second surgery, and only a few survive more than five years.

The use of HEBERPROT-P has unique advantages. It is administered through perilesional and intralesional infiltration and used to treat ulcers that are greater than 20 square cm. and of great depth (from the 3 and 4 scales in the Wagner classification).

Drugs to treat this disease already exist in the world; they are administered through topic via and are used to treat ulcers not exceeding the 5 square cm (from the 1 and 2 scales in the Wagner classification).

At the end of 2005, specialists finished a multicentral clinical study, known as Phase II, in 41 patients. In the 53 percent of the cases, complete cicatrisation of the wound was achieved and in the 60 percent of the cases, amputation was avoided.

Until 2007, HEBERPROT-P has been successfully applied in more than 250 Cuban patients. There are more than 350,000 diabetic people in our country and it is estimated that, at least once in their lives, they can suffer from foot ulcers.

Source: By Julieta Garcia Rios, Juventud Rebelde