Revolutionizing Trauma Care: Shellfish Skeleton-Based Dressing Halts Blood Loss in Road Accident Victims
A groundbreaking wound dressing made from the skeletal remains of shellfish may revolutionize the way blood loss is treated in road accident victims. Developed by Indian and US scientists, the dressing has been found to quickly control rapid traumatic bleeding episodes that account for 40% of road accident deaths.
Although the dressing was commercialized over a decade ago, researchers recently published a study uncovering the science behind its effectiveness. The patch-like dressing is widely used by the military in 40 countries, including the Indian Army.
Animal models and a clinical study demonstrated that the dressing rapidly absorbs blood and concentrates clotting components, leading to reduced blood loss and faster bleeding control. Even in the presence of anticoagulants, which are used by many individuals on medical advice, the dressing was able to stop bleeding within 9 minutes. In comparison, other alternatives took 30 minutes or two hours to achieve the same result.
Congrats! #Bengaluru-based Axio Biosolutions's Axiostat haemostatic dressing has become the first Indian wound care product to receive US FDA approval https://t.co/Ht9wehezDi
— Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (@kiranshaw) March 2, 2018
With road accidents claiming over 150,000 lives in India each year, excessive blood loss is a major cause of death. The new dressing has the potential to prevent many of these fatalities.
The idea for the dressing originated from bioengineer Leo Mavley’s personal experience with a road accident victim. He decided to develop the dressing using chitosan, a molecule derived from crustacean shells. The dressing also contains an engineered, porous microstructure that effectively stops massive bleeding.
Mavley established a company in 2008 to manufacture the innovative dressing and received an award from the Anjani Mashelkar Foundation for his product.
While the dressing is already available in the market, Harvard Medical School researchers, Mavley, Mashelkar, and other Indian scientists collaborated on a study to further elucidate its capabilities. They published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Previous research on chitosan-based wound dressings primarily focused on the intrinsic properties of the source materials or their chemical modifications, without considering the changes in pore structure resulting from such alterations. The Indo-US team discovered that the shape of the pores plays a crucial role in stopping blood loss, highlighting the importance of microscopic engineering.
The bio adhesive dressing has already received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration and regulatory agencies in 28 other countries, including Argentina, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Indonesia, and Thailand.
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