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This
tourniquet bandage has new twists
When
the Department of Defense offered Virginia Common-wealth
University a $300,000 grant to modify the traditional
tourniquet, Marcus E. Carr didn't think much of the
idea. "We responded with, 'Let's not do the tourniquet
again. Let's do something different,'" says the
professor of internal medicine, pathology and biomedical
engineering.
Carr's concerns were that in the heat of battle, combat
medics aren't always available. Wounded soldiers often
have to fend for themselves. The military wanted VCU
to explore putting beepers on tourniquets that would
go off every 15 minutes - signaling when it was time
to release pressure. Carr and his team thought the idea
impractical and burdensome.
Instead,
they came up with an alternative. Rather than modifying
the tourniquet - an imprecise contraption used to compress
blood vessels and stop bleeding - Carr and his team
started from scratch looking for something easy and
convenient enough for soldiers in the field to use without
medical supervision.
Their idea is the BioHemostat bandage. Made up of a
flexible surface with large pores on the outside and
a water-loving polymer on the inside, the bandage can
absorb about 1,400 times its weight and has a special
clotting agent. When inserted into a wound, the device
expands, effectively stopping arterial bleeding, while
still allowing blood to flow to other parts of the body.
"This stuff works very quickly, within two minutes,"
says Carr. And it's lightweight enough that every soldier
can carry one in his pocket.
Carr sees potential civilian uses for the device as
well. On the drawing board is an external bandage for
emergency first aid kits which, like a Band-Aid, would
have a Teflon layer that wouldn't stick to the wound.
You basically place it on the wound and close it with
Velcro, Carr says. Like the BioHemostat, the bandage's
polymer would then swell up, stopping the bleeding while
delivering antibiotics and analgesics.
-
Leila Marija Ugincius
Return to Virginia Business - January
2002
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