MEBO has been registered in Malaysia as an over-the-counter ointment for minor burns and scalds since 2004. However, it was only used to treat more serious burns and chronic wounds recently in a few hospitals. Consultant plastic surgeon Dr Salina Ibrahim is one of the pioneers. After using MEBO for three months on chronic wounds, she remains carefully hopeful.

Dr Salina Ibrahim ... The MEBT/MEBO technique seems to have excellent results with burns. Chronic wounds still take a long time to heal, but acute wounds heal faster.

It seems to have excellent results with burns, she says. “Some chronic wounds ranging from one month to a year have also successfully re-epithelialised (restoration of the outer layer of the skin after an injury) after using MEBO within four to six weeks.”

However, the rate of wound healing would also depend on other factors, such as the physician’s or patient’s compliance to proper techniques when administering the treatment and the presence of underlying chronic diseases such as diabetes.

Younger patients with no medical problems generally have better outcomes, but diabetic patients and those involving pressure areas (sores) or lower limbs will take longer to heal, Dr Salina explains.

Dr Margaret Leow, a senior lecturer in plastic surgery, started using MEBO about two months ago to treat burns. It was only after attending Prof Chen’s talk last month that she proceeded to use the ointment on some chronic wounds.

“The most amazing results so far are with burns,” she says.

Pleasantly surprised by her experience with two patients who would have needed skin grafts otherwise, she says, “Even if I did surgery, the texture of their skin may not be very good. But (with MEBO) they have healed so well, they have nice, soft skin again. Although the skin colour has not returned to normal yet, I think it will take some time.”

Even so, she is quick to point out that so far, the burns she treated with MEBO are small-area burn wounds. And even though the therapy claims to be painless, some patients did complain of some pain. “But it is not something that painkillers can’t deal with,” she says.

When asked for her comments on the treatment, Dr Leow says, “While some of the results have been excellent, some of the wounds have not been healing as fast as expected,” she adds. “Because (Prof Chen) has such amazing results, we tend to think that (the therapy) is almost magical. But not all wounds respond with the same results – some (wounds) do take a while to heal.”

As the main challenges experienced by both doctors include the relatively longer hospital stay needed to treat patients and the current cost of MEBO (especially when a lot of it is needed to deal with larger and more severe wounds), an assessment of the treatment’s cost-effectiveness in Malaysia can help doctors and hospitals strike a balance between the therapeutic value of the treatment and the cost involved.

Dr Leow explains this scenario: “If I treat a burns patient with a skin graft, he or she might recover in two weeks compared to MEBT/MEBO, which may require a three-week hospital stay. However, the quality of the patient’s skin after skin grafting may not be as good. With MEBO, the quality of the skin after treatment is good.

“I think there is definitely a place for MEBT/MEBO, especially for (the treatment of) burns. As for chronic wounds, if I can’t see any other way of dealing with it, I think it is good for those too,” she says.

However, she thinks that there is also a place for every other treatment option currently available for the treatment of burns and wounds. Like MEBT/MEBO, they are just other ways of treating such injuries.

“They still heal, but I think, (MEBT/MEBO) might be able to give a better result,” she says.

Source:  the star Mag