
A gel that can stop severe bleeding instantly - leojkent
http://www.humansinvent.com/#!/11409/the-gel-that-stops-bleeding-instantly/
======
gnosis
There are many blood stopping agents out on the market. Many of them were
originally developed by/for the military in the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, and are
now available to civilians.

Here's a list of some of these products:

Bleed-X, TraumaDEX - <http://www.bleed-x.com/>
<http://www.bydezignproducts.com/bleedx.html>

BloodSTOP - <http://www.lifescienceplus.com/>

Celox - <http://www.celoxmedical.com/>

HemCon - <http://www.hemcon.com/>

RDH (Rapid Deployment Hemostat) -
[http://www.surgery.uthscsa.edu/faculty/pubs/cohn-
hemostat.pd...](http://www.surgery.uthscsa.edu/faculty/pubs/cohn-hemostat.pdf)

QuickClot - <http://www.quikclot.com/home.aspx>

WoundSeal, BioSeal, QR Powder - <http://www.biolife.com/ourproducts.html>

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richardlblair
As a man who enjoys a good shave, I can tell you that clotting agents sting
like a bitch

~~~
smartwater
I haven't cut myself shaving in years. I hope you're not using disposables!

~~~
richardlblair
Straight razors my friend... such a good shave.

Just every so often you slip a little.

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uberuberuber
I am a former critical care medic, and lack the scientific training to judge
the merits of their claims about mechanism of action, but if history is any
guide regarding ‘miracle’ products it will not live up to the manufacturers
claims.

The use cases I can think of and commentary:

-Hemostasis after non-emergent ear/nose/throat procedures. -Packing of the wound + local epinephrine administration is currently used. It costs nothing, is well understood, and doesn’t have the potential for embolization or immune system interaction weirdness.

-Hemostasis of an extremity wound AFTER a tourniquet has been applied. -After a tourniquet is properly placed, the arterial flow is halted. Trauma teams have learned from military and orthopedic surgeons that tourniquets are much safer than traditionally understood. Even an amputated limb has a warm ischemia team of 6 hours. The addition of a clotting agent would stop venous oozing, but wouldn’t affect hemodynamics of the patient. It might assist in the case of an inappropriately applied tourniquet.

-Hemostasis of an abdominal wound. \- I guess they envisage pouring this material into the abdomen? That seems like the place most fraught with danger of embolization distally to the mesentery and the generation of immune system interaction weirdness beyond my knowledge base.

A kaolin-based product (Quickclot) was similarly marketed as a wonder drug for
treating massive hemorrhage on the battlefield, and it has been less than
wonderful in practice. There are youtube videos attesting to its efficacy on
the femoral arteries of swine, however these videos ignore the effect wind has
upon the powder in a combat setting, and the exothermic reaction that takes
place to create the plug. The only way to stop a large hemorrhage is to use
copious amounts of the material, resulting in severe burns in some case
reports. Concern over embolization of the clotted material led them to create
a gauze-bag version.

The company’s claims that holding pressure over the wound is not required runs
counter to basic trauma care recommendations. The single best way to halt
life-threatening hemorrhage in an extremity is a tourniquet, and the only
thing that halts thorax hemorrhage is a surgeon’s finger. The inclusion of
this gel in the treatment algorithm would need to be as a last resort, and
must never distract from the basics of direct pressure and rapid transport to
a surgeon.

I don't know if this qualifies as an ad hominem on my part, but the article
comes across as written by the journalist in close coordination with the
companies PR firm. The 'hook' inherent in the choice of headline combined with
the lack of any discussion of the limitations of the product or previous
failures with regards to ‘miracle’ hemorrhage agents cements this in my
opinion.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
OP (edit: submitter) has zero comment history and appears to have only
submitted his own articles [1]. Not damning, but a red flag.

[1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=leojkent>

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justin66
We all had a story or something that motivated us to register and comment.

I've heard everything he's said before from other people in trauma medicine.
(but there are also people who will stick up for the Quickclot type stuff!)
It's not my field and I'm not in a position to judge. I will say that I share
his view that the article reads like something written by a PR flack.

~~~
DigitalJack
I believe he was referring to the submitter.

~~~
justin66
Thank you. My mistake.

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bobsy
So where does the blood go?

The demo video shows an extreme bleed. Like a artery has been cut or
something. Sure, you seal the blood in but wouldn't you still bleed out
internally?

Like if you cut your femoral and gel up your leg. Would you survive for any
length of time?

~~~
zackbloom
Your arteries and veins form a pressurized system. If you seal a hole well
enough (stronger than the systolic pressure of the heart), it will prevent any
blood from leaking out. When you close your bathroom faucet it doesn't cause
water to start leaking out somewhere else in your house.

~~~
itcmcgrath
But if I cut the pipe leading to the faucet then merely shut the cupboard
door, my cupboard is not going to be very happy.

I think he's comment was that the gel isn't necessarily sealing the
arteries/veins, only the 'hole in your leg' - the assumption being this could
still result in fatal internal bleeding - that more traditional methods such
as pressure on the wound or a tourniquet could have had better success with.

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user24
I wonder how this differs from the existing products celox[1] and quikclot[2],
which AFAIK are coagulants?

[1] <http://www.celoxmedical.com/tech_howitworks.htm>

[2] [http://www.z-medica.com/healthcare/How-QuikClot-Works/How-
Qu...](http://www.z-medica.com/healthcare/How-QuikClot-Works/How-QuikClot-
Works.aspx)

edit: from a quick look over all three (I'm no expert), it seems like this new
one might be faster acting.

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kijin
Sounds cool, but I wonder what would happen with bacteria that are trapped
underneath the rapidly solidifying gel.

Usually, the flow of blood tends to wash pathogens out of the wound, reducing
the chance of nasty infections. Positive blood pressure can therefore be
considered a natural defense mechanism. But if you stopped the bleeding too
quickly, wouldn't it trap pathogens inside the body before the blood has had a
chance to wash them out? Or does the extra-rapid clotting actually trap
pathogens _within_ the solid matrix, preventing them from spreading further
into the body?

~~~
gnosis
I am not a doctor, but from what I've read, treating an infection is usually
considered much less of a priority by emergency responders than stopping
severe bleeding.

You can bleed to death in a few minutes. Few if any infections are going to be
that fast-acting. So stopping severe bleeding will hopefully buy you some time
to get to the ER, where they'll pump you full of antibiotics if they have to.

~~~
danielweber
Unfortunately antibiotics are becoming less and less useful. In 50 years we
could be back to where a cut on your toe is life-threatening. :(

~~~
learc83
From what I've read the antibiotic resistant strains of bacterial are
outcompeted by non-antibiotic strains when not in the presence of antibiotics.

So if antibiotics become completely ineffective and people stop using them,
the resistant strains will die off eventually, possibly quickly.

~~~
randall
Reference?

~~~
learc83
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20208551>

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Sulfolobus
Could you not just use Superglue for a temporary fix before treatment?

~~~
richardlblair
Superglue does work. But if you watch the video in the article there is no way
you could apply Superglue to a cut that deep and that long.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Couldn't you just use a piece of waterproof [well blood-proof] material
lathered with superglue and slap it on; basically a superglue band-aid. That
would contain the bleeding and be cheaper and easier to apply, presumably,
than this solution. It would have the same problem of internal bleeding as
well of course.

With the OP's solution how do you remove it to treat the injury?

~~~
aplusbi
It would contain the bleeding but it wouldn't stop it.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I understood that was what the gel in question did, contained the bleeding to
prevent bleeding out before medical aid could be given. But, that it was not
preventing the bleed from continuing internally.

As you may guess I have basically no medical training so I may well have
misunderstood.

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nodata
Does this generate intense heat like the older products do?

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kalms
Of all the things from the Mass Effect universe they could invent they picked
medigel? Come on!

~~~
1SaltwaterC
Thinking the same thing. But the medigel is that thing too useful to be banned
by the Council, so ... yes.

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L0j1k
I'm an infantry veteran with three combat tours under my belt. Been there,
done that.

The problem with these sort of fast-clot systems (Quick clot or quiclot or
however you spell it) is that they inevitably damage the surrounding tissue
and make recovery and healing difficult if not impossible without permanent
damage. There's a reason they didn't want us to have any of these systems when
we got back to the real world (though I kept a couple for myself). If we used
them on civilians, we would probably be sued into oblivion for _causing_
severe damage to the bleeder even if we saved their lives using it.

Just like the other medics here will probably tell you, if this isn't on a
battlefield saving lives under fire, I don't trust it.

~~~
rdl
The CAT and the Israeli Bandage, however, are seriously useful, and are in my
laptop bag first aid compartment, and in a couple parts of the car, and the
range bag.

