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     Walailak University hospital has proved its readiness to serve the medical community in the South of Thailand by succeeding in producing placental membrane. This success translates into mitigation of the supply shortage as well as logistics of the tissue transported from other medical institutes. 

Why placental membrane? 

    Placental membrane which has been around in medicine for over decades owes itself to its supporting properties which help to extend the shelf life of stem cells, deter inflammation, and do not trigger immune response. With these qualities, it is the perfect type of tissue for transplantation used to treat eye disease and diverse kinds of eye surgery and other conditions requiring skin repair and healings such as burn wounds, and scarcity prevention. 

   “Just imagine that skin cells are nurtured on a platform with nutrients circulating underneath nursing cell growth,” said Asst.Prof. Lunla Udomwech, M.D, Deputy Director of Walailak Hospital. Simple depiction is a flower bed nurturing growth of seeds to buds and full-grown flowers. Placenta membrane is characterized by this quality.  

    The thin sheet resembling a wet spring roll sheet is rich in substances effective for wound healing, restoring and reducing cell deterioration. Unlike other organs running risk of immunity-activated rejection, the placental membrane will become a compatible part of the body even though it is taken from another person. 

     Asst.Prof. Lunla said, “Your body will not think it is a foreign object and launch immune response to get rid of it. That is what makes it special.”  Doctors can use it as an alternative to taking the patients’ tissue from other parts of the body which may induce noticeable scars. In terms of eye disease treatment, multiple layers of the tissue can restore thickness of retina and other eye impairment such as Pterygium and other conditions of conjunctiva. 

From Buyers to Suppliers

     Even though the application of placental membrane is in fact nothing novel in medicine, its production is far from being simple. Obstacles to producing one is concerned with a lack of proper facilities and multidisciplinary workforce coordinating all aspects of the procedures. Asst.Prof. Lunla Udomwech, M.D, Deputy Director of Walailak Hospital, highlighted the unparalleled perk of being a university hospital setting abundant in terms of both the facilities and workforce. “putting placenta membrane to the medical practice has been around for so longs. However, our capacity to produce the tissue is inhibited by a lack of facilities,” said Asst.Prof. Lunla Udomwech. 

    With the facilities falling into places ranging from a Biological Safety Cabinet with lamina flow and the cooling control system keeping the temperature at - 80 degrees accompanied by chemical solution as well as a team of multidisciplinary experts working together, the production has finally materialized. 

     Asst.Prof. Lunla said, “Our team consists of gynecologists, biologists, ophthalmologists, microbiologists and medical technologists. Also, the production cannot even begin without mothers specifically with the C-section delivery consenting to the donation of placenta.” Regarding the transformation of freshly delivered placenta to the ready-to use tissue, after retrieving the placenta, the white thin sheet wrapping around a hamburger-meet like lump of placenta will be peeled off and thoroughly cleaned before being plastered on a piece of paper and refrigerated.

     As for the mothers, they will be subjected to a series of blood tests, a minimum of two, one of which before and the other after the window period. This is to ensure that the donated placenta is disease-free and safe for the transplantation. This success will save all troubles involved in logistics as a result of ordering the supply from Prince of Songkhla University (PSU) championing the tissue production in Thailand and the Red Cross Society. 

   Currently, hospitals in Nakhon Si Thammarat are signing up to place an order of the supply and It is hoped that this will just be the beginning of home-grown tissue production. With more institutions joining, the ongoing shortage situation will improve, and so will the medical treatment process in Nakhon Si Thammarat province and Thailand’s upper southern region.

News by Nootchanat Sukkaew 

Division of Corporate Communication