coagulant

New hydrogel stanches blood flow fast, cheaply

A synthetic new gel made of water and the fibrous polymer acrylamide kick into gear the blood-clotting protein known as factor VII, thereby stanching blood flow from deep wounds in just minutes, report researchers from the University of Maryland in College Park.

"You just apply it to the surface of a wound," says Brendan Casey, a biomedical engineer at the university who began investigating polymeric hydrogels in 2007 and presented his latest findings from experiments on sheep at this week's American Chemical Society fall meeting.

Hydrogels are by no means novel, but many are made of biological … Read more

Ultrasound cuff to stop internal bleeding on battlefield

Internal bleeding can cause irreversible haemorrhagic shock within 30 seconds or progressive shock within eight hours, either way, it's not good and the military wants a portable, noninvasive way to detect and stop it right on the battlefield.

To that end, the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has contracted with Siemens Healthcare, the University of Washington's Centre for Industrial and Medical Ultrasound and Texas A&M to develop something called the Deep Bleeder Acoustic Coagulation cuff (DBAC). The cuff is a semi-automated, ultrasound device designed to cut blood loss and shock resulting from combat limb injuries, … Read more