How A Simple New Invention Seals A Gunshot Wound In 15 Seconds

[QuietDan]

Things that make you go . . . hmmmmmm . . .

 

From the article:

 

The sponges work fast: In just 15 seconds, they expand to fill the entire wound cavity, creating enough pressure to stop heavy bleeding. And because the sponges cling to moist surfaces, they aren’t pushed back out of the body by gushing blood. “By the time you even put a bandage over the wound, the bleeding has already stopped,” Steinbaugh says.

 

 

How A Simple New Invention Seals A Gunshot Wound In 15 Seconds

 

An Oregon startup has developed a pocket-size device that uses tiny sponges to stop bleeding fast.

 

By Rose Pastore

 

XStat 

 

When a soldier is shot on the battlefield, the emergency treatment can seem as brutal as the injury itself. A medic must pack gauze directly into the wound cavity, sometimes as deep as 5 inches into the body, to stop bleeding from an artery. It’s an agonizing process that doesn't always work--if bleeding hasn't stopped after three minutes of applying direct pressure, the medic must pull out all the gauze and start over again. It’s so painful, “you take the guy’s gun away first,” says former U.S. Army Special Operations medic John Steinbaugh.

 

Even with this emergency treatment, many soldiers still bleed to death; hemorrhage is a leading cause of death on the battlefield. "Gauze bandages just don't work for anything serious," says Steinbaugh, who tended to injured soldiers during more than a dozen deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. When Steinbaugh retired in April 2012 after a head injury, he joined an Oregon-based startup called RevMedx, a small group of veterans, scientists, and engineers who were working on a better way to stop bleeding.

 

XStat, before and after 

RevMedx recently asked the FDA to approve a pocket-size invention: a modified syringe that injects specially coated sponges into wounds. Called XStat, the device could boost survival and spare injured soldiers from additional pain by plugging wounds faster and more efficiently than gauze. 

 

The team’s early efforts were inspired by Fix-a-Flat foam for repairing tires. “That’s what we pictured as the perfect solution: something you could spray in, it would expand, and bleeding stops,” says Steinbaugh. “But we found that blood pressure is so high, blood would wash the foam right out.”

 

So the team tried a new idea: sponges. They bought some ordinary sponges from a hardware store and cut them into 1-centimeter circles, a size and shape they chose on a whim but later would discover were ideal for filling wounds. Then, they injected the bits of sponge into an animal injury. “The bleeding stopped,” says Steinbaugh. “Our eyes lit up. We knew we were onto something.” After seeing early prototypes, the U.S. Army gave the team $5 million to develop a finished product.

 

But kitchen sponges aren’t exactly safe to inject into the body. The final material would need to be sterile, biocompatible, and fast-expanding. The team settled on a sponge made from wood pulp and coated with chitosan, a blood-clotting, antimicrobial substance that comes from shrimp shells. To ensure that no sponges would be left inside the body accidentally, they added X-shaped markers that make each sponge visible on an x-ray image.

 

“By the time you put a bandage over the wound, the bleeding has already stopped.”

 

 

The sponges work fast: In just 15 seconds, they expand to fill the entire wound cavity, creating enough pressure to stop heavy bleeding. And because the sponges cling to moist surfaces, they aren’t pushed back out of the body by gushing blood. “By the time you even put a bandage over the wound, the bleeding has already stopped,” Steinbaugh says.

 

Getting the sponges into a wound, however, proved to be tricky. On the battlefield, medics must carry all their gear with them, along with heavy body armor. RevMedx needed a lightweight, compact way to get the sponges deep into an injury. The team designed a 30 millimeter-diameter, polycarbonate syringe that stores with the handle inside to save space. To use the applicator, a medic pulls out the handle, inserts the cylinder into the wound, and then pushes the plunger back down to inject the sponges as close to the artery as possible.

 

XStat sponges 

Three single-use XStat applicators would replace five bulky rolls of gauze in a medic’s kit. RevMedx also designed a smaller version of the applicator, with a diameter of 12 millimeters, for narrower injuries. Each XStat will likely cost about $100, Steinbaugh says, but the price may go down as RevMedx boosts manufacturing.  

 

If the FDA approves XStat, it will be the first battlefield dressing created specifically for deep, narrow wounds. Gauze, the standard treatment for gunshot and shrapnel injuries, is only approved by the FDA for external use, but “everyone knows that if you get shot, you have to pack gauze into the wound,” says Steinbaugh. When RevMedx submitted its application to the FDA, the U.S. Army attached a cover letter requesting expedited approval. According to Steinbaugh, RevMedx and the military are now in final discussions with the FDA. 

 

Last summer, RevMedx and Oregon Health and Science University won a seed grant, sponsored by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to develop a version of XStat to stop postpartum bleeding. In the future, RevMedx hopes to create biodegradable sponges that don’t have to be removed from the body. To cover large injuries, like those caused by land mines, the team is working on an expanding gauze made of the same material as XStat sponges.

 

“I spent the whole war on terror in the Middle East, so I know what a medic needs when someone has been shot, â€ Steinbaugh says. “I’ve treated lots of guys who would have benefitted from this product. That’s what drives me.”

 

Rose Pastore is an assistant editor at Popular Science. Follow her on Twitter at @RosePastore.

 

http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/how-simple-new-invention-seals-gunshot-wound-15-seconds

 

 

Edited February 4, 2014 by QuietDan

[billyscott]

This sounds like a big step up here. Good.

[glowdotGlock]

My BS meter didn't go off as I thought it would when I opened the thread. Might be useful and save some lives.

[Guest theconstitutionrocks]

Celox makes something somewhat similar...it a syringe loaded with celox powder, the intent is you shove it into the hole (OUCH!!) and depress the plunger which fills the hole with granules which then clot. Celox seems like pretty awesome stuff...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCSf5Asa8rc

[Guest Lowbuster]

I carry celox in my fak

[whitewolf001]

I carry celox in my fak

How big is the syringe? Cause the one provided by the OP is MASSIVE.

[Trekbike]

How big is the syringe? Cause the one provided by the OP is MASSIVE.

That's the one to be used for .45 ACP wounds. :)

[E4 No More]

I think it's a great idea if it pans out! All the luck in the world to them.

[gjohnsoniv]

That's the one to be used for .45 ACP wounds. :)

That's a good bit bigger than a .45...

[jtmaze]

I actually brought some stock in this company very cheaply hoping this would pass the FDA. JTM We the People of the United States, in order to form a more Perfect Union......

[Guest Lowbuster]

How big is the syringe? Cause the one provided by the OP is MASSIVE.

Mine is just the bag, not a syringe, sorry I didn't make that clear.

[Hershmeister]

IED's, artillery, mines and other nastyness make big holes in people

[Ted S.]

I really hope that pig was dead...

[CM1021]

That pig was definitely alive!

[TMF]

How big is the syringe? Cause the one provided by the OP is MASSIVE.

Swelling from internal bleeding can make tiny wounds very big. I recall a dude with a severed femoral from a relatively tiny hole which swelled up large enough to stick a golf ball in there.

Also, if you're stuffing a wound with curlex or something I was taught it was okay to make the wound a little bigger to get to the bleed. That may be wrong for stateside treatment, I dunno. Most of my real world experience on trauma patients were folks that warranted a large margin for error.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Luke E.]

I really hope that pig was dead...

 

 If the hog was dead then the heart would not be beating and if the heart (the pump) isn't beating then there's nothing circulating the blood thus no need for action. Hog had to be alive.

[Ted S.]

 If the hog was dead then the heart would not be beating and if the heart (the pump) isn't beating then there's nothing circulating the blood thus no need for action. Hog had to be alive.

 

It must hate life now then.

Edited February 15, 2014 by Ted S.

[TMF]

It must hate life now then.

They're beyond heavily sedated.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[gjohnsoniv]

It appears that Celox has a similar version.  Just happened to come across this.

 

http://www.adsinc.com/shop-now/celox-applicator

[xjsnake]

That's brilliant. It's like they took the idea of tampons for gunshots and made it so much better.

[I_Like_Pie]

It must hate life now then.

 

It is startling if you aren't used to seeing such a thing...

 

But....that is how these products are tested.  No big deal.  

Remember we process like a bazillion hogs a year in a much worse way than this one passing on a table for medical research.

[Ted S.]

Sorry, just used to seeing people kill if they do anything. I don't recall ever seeing anything like this. It doesn't offend me or anything; it's just new to me. Sent from somewhere in the cosmos using magic...and bacon.