Perm Doctors Save Teen from Rare Skin-Destroying Disease

Perm doctors have saved 16-year-old Inna (the girl«s name has been changed as she is a minor) who had an unusual disease that caused her to lose 95% of her skin. We tell the story with a happy ending.

The Ministry of Health of the Perm Krai reported that Inna had signs of a viral illness. Painful spots appeared on her body, which turned into blisters and left burns on her skin. Infectious disease doctors conducted an examination and diagnosed the teenager with Lyell«s syndrome.

Lyell«s syndrome is a severe allergic disease. Patients are immediately taken to the hospital due to the risk of dehydration, sepsis (infection of the body — Ed.), and damage to internal organs. In Lyell»s syndrome, the body rejects the top layer of skin — the epidermis. The slightest touch to the body causes the skin to blister and peel off. In severe cases, the probability of a fatal outcome reaches 70%.

The Ministry of Health explained that Lyell«s syndrome has an allergic-immunological nature. This means the allergic stage occurs within the first hours or days, and then doctors treat the consequences of the body»s sharp reaction. It appears due to medications or toxic substances, including various vape mixtures. In such cases, it is impossible to precisely determine the source of Lyell«s syndrome symptoms — most likely, a combination of factors leads to the severe reaction.

After the examination, doctors at the Perm Infectious Diseases Hospital contacted colleagues from the Regional Clinical Hospital and requested that the girl be transferred to the allergology department. By that time, Inna was in critical condition, and the top layer of her skin had already peeled off. The girl was monitored by a whole team of doctors: allergists, therapists, ophthalmologists, ENT specialists, gynecologists, gastroenterologists, nephrologists, surgeons, and dermatologists.

Inna was transferred to intensive care for round-the-clock monitoring and given painkillers. Specialists constantly changed her dressings to prevent infection. Burn specialists (doctors who treat burns of any complexity) from Grinberg Hospital also came to the Regional Clinical Hospital. Resuscitation specialists from the Regional Children«s Clinical Hospital brought a special lamp to help the girl»s wounds heal faster and to keep her warm.

During treatment, Inna«s skin recovered, but not completely — 15% of the epidermis needed to be restored. In such cases, doctors perform a skin graft. For the operation, the girl was transferred to the intensive care unit of Grinberg Hospital. There, she was placed in a special airbed to avoid touching the damaged areas and to preserve the beginnings of the epidermis.

The doctors managed the sepsis and performed two skin transplants. According to Andrey Babikov, the chief freelance burn specialist of the regional Ministry of Health and head of the burn department at Grinberg Hospital, in his 30 years of practice, this is the second case of Lyell«s syndrome in which an allergy patient was cured in a burn department.

«The patient was not our typical case; these are not burns, but without a skin transplant, achieving her complete cure and recovery would have been impossible. All procedures were carried out as gently and carefully as possible,» said Andrey Babikov.

After the skin transplant, during sessions with Grinberg Hospital«s therapeutic exercise instructor Tatyana Svezhova, Inna learned to sit and walk. She will still have to take special showers and baths and use special care products for a long time to prevent scarring.

«Her body is still like a patchwork quilt of different shades. But she is alive, practically healthy, and firmly determined to make a full recovery,» says Tatyana Svezhova.

Previously, we told the story of saving a Perm woman who was found to have a five-centimeter tumor in her heart.