New Therapy Available for Women Who Suffer with Lichen Sclerosus

(Newswire.net — July 31, 2015) Fairhope, Alabama — Women who suffer with lichen sclerosus may have new hope with a possible break-through therapy presented by Dr Andrew Goldstein at the International Society for the Study of Vulvovaginal Disease (ISSVD).  Dr. Goldstein presented the research at this week’s meeting in New York of the World Congress of ISSVD.   Dr. Goldstein worked with Dr. Charles Runels to develop the protocol which makes use of the same technology used by both the O-Shot® & the Vampire Facelift® procedures.

 

Women who suffer with lichen sclerosus often go years without the ability to have sexual relations, can be left with permanent scaring, and have a 5-10% increased risk of suffering with vulvar cancer.

 

In this study, biopsies pre and post treatment were graded by 2 dermatopathologists (who were blinded to which samples were the before or the after treatment). The pathologists when examining biopsies under the microscope reported improvement of the disease in the majority of women treated. Also, the majority of the women treated reported relief of symptoms. Dr. Goldstein, who founded The Centers for Vulvovaginal Disoders, says he will continue the research & publish more detailed analysis with more subjects as soon as possible

 

The treatment under investigation requires less than 20 minutes. A woman’s own blood is drawn from her arm, processed to extract platelet-rich plasma, and then (after applying a numbing cream to the vagina) the plasma is injected in a specific way nto the diseased tissue of the vulva.  This method, invented by Dr. Runels, has been offered by the O-Shot® provider group for the past 5 years for the treatment of urinary incontinence and sexual dysfunction, but only recently was investigated in this protocol for the treatment of lichen sclerosus.

 

The standard treatment for lichen sclerosus uaually requires lifetime use of topical steroid creams which will often control the disease but can decrease immune function and possiblly leave the woman more susceptible to carcinoma from the virus responsible for condyloma.

 

Dr. Runels warned, “Women should not stop using steroid creams as prescribed by their gynecologist. But, we hope to offer O-Shot® technology using blood derived growth factors as a possible additional tool. One of the benefits of the new therapy could include resolution of scaring, relief of urinary incontinence, improvement in sexual response, and relief of dyspareunia [sexual pain].”

 

“When I first began work with blood derived growth factors, 6 years ago, I worked exclusively with the face so I could more easily see how the material behaves when injected and how the injected tissue responds.  Facial tissue, especially around the mouth, shares important traits with vaginal tissue,” says Dr. Runels.  “I never expected that facial procedure, the Vampire Facelift®, to become as popular as it did.”

 

“I’m grateful to Kim Kardashian for helping popularize the procedure because now we use a majority of the profits from the ‘Vampire’ to help finance research and education concerning the healing of diseases of the genitalia,” said Dr. Runels.  “I don’t think Ms. Kardashian knew that she would be helping finance breakthrough research in women’s sexual health when she did the Vampire Facial® procedure, but I don’t care. I’ll still be forever grateful to her for using her celebrity status for good purposes. Because there is no drug involved in this procedure (only the woman’s blood), there is no pharmaceutical company to finance this research. We could have never afforded this research for the treatment of lichen sclerosus (approaching $100,000) without the publicity Ms. Kardashian provided.

 

“Dr. Francesco Casabona of Italy also explored the treatment of lichen sclerosus. After some of our providers confirmed Dr. Casabona’s reports of women suffering with lichen sclerosus finding relief with stem cells combined blood-derived growth factors, we wanted to see if women could see benefit from the blood factors alone since these blood factors (platelet-rich plasma) can be obtained with much less trouble or expense than with stem cells. Casaboana’s work showed improvement with 2 treatments; we wanted to see if the benefit may be from just 1 of the two. Because of his world-wide reputation with the treatment of lichen sclerosus, I wanted Dr. Goldstein to work as chief investigator for the research.  I wanted to use the specific methods of the O-Shot® procedure applied to the treatment of lichen sclerosus. The quality of research that Dr. Goldstein achieved is second to none and without him this research would have not been done,” said Dr. Runels

 

The ISSVD is a non-profit organization encouraging scholarly research in diffiicult-to-treat diseases of the female genitalia and is hosting scientists from around the world this week at New York University. Further help with lichen sclerosus can be found at the Association for Lichen Sclerosus & Vulvar Health.  The American Cosmetic Cellular Medicine Association will provide updates on this research on their website about the project.

 

Who would guess that Vampires and Kim Kardashian would help cure a terrible disease!