National Jewish Medical Center

Teen With Flesh-Eating Fish Tank Bacteria Coming To Colo.

"I can't use that hand at all. I'm in pain all the time," Hannele told "Good Morning America."

Over the years, the infection has forced Hannele to quit sports like volleyball and gymnastics, despite having won an American Athletic Union gymnastics championship. The infection has become so severe that the eighth grader has been unable to write or do school work because her dominant hand is constantly shaking with pain.

Mycobacterium marinum, sometimes referred to as fish tank granuloma, usually eats away at only the surface of the skin. But in Hannele's case it has infected several bones in her right hand, a development which could mean amputation of her right hand.

Doctors at the Loma Linda Medical Center and UCLA Medical Center in California have tried multiple types of antibiotics and two surgeries to remove infected tissue, but the bacteria seems to have become drug-resistant.

Fearing she may be infected with a "superbug" strain of the bacteria, the Cox family is seeking further treatment for her with infectious disease experts at National Jewish Health Medical Center next month.

"I'm afraid they won't be able to fix it," Hannele said of her upcoming trip to Denver. "I'm afraid they'll mess up again, and I'll go through something I didn't have to, like with the past treatments."

Her mother is also looking ahead to the Denver trip with concern.

"When I found out that it had spread to her bones, I think that's the hardest I've cried in this whole thing. I just lost it," said the teen's mom, Amy Cox. "After years of doctors not taking this seriously, this trip [to Denver] is our last hope."

The trip has already been delayed due to insurance issues, and in order to afford the medical bills, the family sold their horses to save them the cost of boarding and feeding them.

Tuesday night, Amy Cox said money from the horse sale and donations that will help pay for some of the trip expenses.

"I just feel like God has been faithful," said Amy Cox.

Hannele Cox said she had been trying not to get her hopes up, but as she got ready to leave for Denver, she felt a little excitement.

"I just hope I am cured for good, not just for two months," she said. "I am sort of excited. I am starting to get my hopes up."

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Human lungs diseases - for medical blog

Vuokko L. Kinnula and James D. Crapo

Departments of Medicine, University of Helsinki and University of Oulu, Finland; and National Jewish Medical and Research Center and University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, Colorado

The lungs are directly exposed to higher oxygen concentrations than most other tissues. Increased oxidative stress is a significant part of the pathogenesis of obstructive lung diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, parenchymal lung diseases (e.g., idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and lung granulomatous diseases), and lung malignancies.

Lung tissue is protected against these oxidants by a variety of antioxidant mechanisms among which the superoxide dismutases (SODs) are the only ones converting superoxide radicals to hydrogen peroxide. There are three SODs: cytosolic copper–zinc, mitochondrial manganese, and extracellular SODs.

These enzymes have specific distributions and functions. Their importance in protecting lung tissue has been confirmed in transgenic and knockout animal studies. Relatively few studies have been conducted on these enzymes in the normal human lung or in human lung diseases.

Most human studies suggest that there is induction of manganese SOD and, possibly, extracellular SOD during inflammatory, but not fibrotic, phases of parenchymal lung diseases and that both copper–zinc SOD and manganese SOD may be downregulated in asthmatic airways. Many previous antioxidant therapies have been disappointing, but newly characterized SOD mimetics are being shown to protect against oxidant-related lung disorders in animal models.

MODELING OF HUMAN DISEASE in animals forms the basis of much of biomedical research. Animal models have been used to explore normal physiology, the pathophysiology of human disorders, and to test the safety and efficacy of new therapies in preclinical studies. In the field of lung research, much of our understanding of lung physiology under normal and pathological conditions derives from classic studies in dogs and sheep, including studies of normal pulmonary function by Julius Comroe (6), studies of the distribution of ventilation and perfusion by James West (25), studies of the pulmonary vasculature and alveolar surface tension by Solbert Permutt (10, 18), and studies of the mechanisms of formation of pulmonary edema by Norman Staub (23, 24) and the resolution of pulmonary edema by Michael Matthay (15).