Hallym University Kangnam Sacred Heart Hospital

The research paper titled ‘Effects of sustained release growth hormone treatment during the rehabilitation of adult severe burn survivors’ written by Dr. Junbeom Kim of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine and Dr. Cheong Hoon Seo of Rehabilitation Medicine at Hallym University Hangang Sacred Heart Hospital was published in the Growth Hormone and IGF Research issued in April.

According to this 3-month-long research, which used the data of 33 patients with third-degree burns on more than 20% of their body, the growth hormone therapy resulted in an increase of patients’ weight and muscular strength. This helped the recovery by reducing the damage from wasting disease, a complication caused by burns.

The research is considered valuable in investigating the effect of growth hormone therapy on severe burn patients who have a high risk of having weight and muscle loss, as well as the wasting disease like muscular weakness.

“Growth hormone is usually used to enhance children’s physical growth. So far it has not been confirmed if it also works for the improvement of adult burn patients’ muscle strength, who are suffering from weight and muscle loss,” said Dr. Kim and Dr. Seo. “However, this recent research has proved that growth hormone therapy can be used to help burn patients,” they added.

By Ji-Yoon Lee, Int’l Cooperation Team, HUMC (jlee@hallym.or.kr)