Clinical Focus


  • Plastic Surgery

Academic Appointments


Professional Education


  • Board Certification: American Board of Plastic Surgery, Plastic Surgery (2020)
  • Medical Education: University of Ottawa School of Medicine (2012) Canada
  • Fellowship: University of Toronto (2018)
  • Board Certification: Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Plastic Surgery (2017)
  • Residency: University of Toronto (2017) Canada

All Publications


  • Successful topical treatment of human biofilms using multiple antibiotic elution from a collagen-rich hydrogel. Scientific reports Sharma, A. D., Jarman, E. H., Kuppalli, K., Murphy, M. J., Longaker, M. T., Gurtner, G., Fox, P. M. 2024; 14 (1): 5621

    Abstract

    Chronic non-healing wounds significantly strain modern healthcare systems, affecting 1-2% of the population in developed countries with costs ranging between $28.1 and $96.8 billion annually. Additionally, it has been established that chronic wounds resulting from comorbidities, such as peripheral vascular disease and diabetes mellitus, tend to be polymicrobial in nature. Treatment of polymicrobial chronic wounds with oral and IV antibiotics can result in antimicrobial resistance, leading to more difficult-to-treat wounds. Ideally, chronic ulcers would be topically treated with antibiotic combinations tailored to the microbiome of a patient's wound. We have previously shown that a topical collagen-rich hydrogel (cHG) can elute single antibiotics to inhibit bacterial growth in a manner that is nontoxic to mammalian cells. Here, we analyzed the microbiology of cultures taken from human patients diagnosed with diabetes mellitus suffering from chronic wounds present for more than 6 weeks. Additionally, we examined the safety of the elution of multiple antibiotics from collagen-rich hydrogel in mammalian cells in vivo. Finally, we aimed to create tailored combinations of antibiotics impregnated into cHG to successfully target and treat infections and eradicate biofilms cultured from human chronic diabetic wound tissue. We found that the majority of human chronic wounds in our study were polymicrobial in nature. The elution of multiple antibiotics from cHG was well-tolerated in mammalian cells, making it a potential topical treatment of the polymicrobial chronic wound. Finally, combinations of antibiotics tailored to each patient's microbiome eluted from a collagen-rich hydrogel successfully treated bacterial cultures isolated from patient samples via an in vitro assay.

    View details for DOI 10.1038/s41598-024-54477-z

    View details for PubMedID 38454046

  • Multidisciplinary extremity preservation program improves quality of life for patients with advanced limb threat. Annals of vascular surgery Fereydooni, A., Yawary, F., Sen, S., Chou, L., Murphy, M., Dalman, R. L., Stern, J. R., Chandra, V. 2022

    Abstract

    The need for multidisciplinary care of patients with advanced limb threat is well established. We examined patient reported outcomes and health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) for those who completed a multidisciplinary extremity preservation program (EPP) at our institution.Patients with advanced limb threat, who had previously failed standard management at a tertiary-care center, were referred to EPP for evaluation by a multidisciplinary panel of vascular, plastic, orthopedic and podiatric surgeons, along with infectious disease, prosthetics, orthotics, imaging, palliative care, social work and wound nursing specialists. HR-QoL was quantified before and after EPP participation with the RAND-36 questionnaire. The validated RAND-36 assesses physical function, role limitations caused by physical and emotional health problems, social functioning, emotional well-being, energy, pain and general health perceptions.From 2018 to 2020, 185 patients were referred to EPP. After review by the multidisciplinary panel, 120 were accepted into the program, 63 of whom completed their course of care; 9 were one-time consultations. The median number of EPP in-person care visits was 23 (13-54) per participant; 87.3% of patients received one or more surgical procedure, including operative debridement (73%), revascularization (44%), soft tissue reconstruction or transplantation (46%), as well as hyperbaric oxygen therapy (11%) during their course of treatment. 85.7% of patients achieved complete wound healing, 41.5% occurring within 6 months. Ultimately, 14.3% required a major amputation. Graduates noted improvement in all categories of the HR-QoL upon completion, including those undergoing major amputation. On adjusted multivariate regression analysis, patients with immunocompromised status were more likely to show greater improvement in their social function (OR: 10.1; P<0.044) and emotional role limitation (OR:8.1; P=0.042), while patients with larger wound volume at presentation were more likely to have greater improvement in their general health (OR: 1.1; P<0.049). Conversely, patients with a smoking history had less improvement in energy level (OR:0.4; P=0.044) and patients with dialysis-dependence had less improvement in social function (OR:0.2; P=0.034).Coordinated, multidisciplinary extremity preservation program improves HR-QoL of patients with complex limb threat, including those who are immunocompromised with impaired social function and emotional role limitations. Further study is warranted to better characterize the generalizability of this approach, including considerations of cost-effectiveness, wound recidivism, and limiting the number of in-person visits required to achieve complete healing.

    View details for DOI 10.1016/j.avsg.2022.05.047

    View details for PubMedID 35803456

  • Multidisciplinary Extremity Preservation Program Improves Quality of Life for Patients With Advanced Limb Threat Fereydooni, A., Yawary, F., Sen, S., Chou, L., Dalman, R. L., Murphy, M., Stern, J. R., Chandra, V. MOSBY-ELSEVIER. 2021: E41-E43