I was interested to read an article in Task & Purpose about how the US military is helping to develop artificial blood for use in battlefield trauma treatment. It'll also be useful for civilian paramedics and EMT's at accident scenes.
I have a more specific, more personal interest in artificial blood. Back in the 1970's, I was a blood donor in South Africa, and was invited to join the cell separation donation unit. Briefly, they stuck a needle in each arm. Blood would be withdrawn through one needle, then centrifuged to extract the specific blood component the hospital needed; then the remaining blood would be reinserted (transfused?) through the other needle. It typically took two hours to complete a cell separation donation.
In time, I "graduated" to a special team of donors on call to support heart surgery at Groote Schuur Hospital, where the world's first heart transplant was performed in 1967. At that time, for certain critical heart surgeries blood components might be required that had to be absolutely fresh - they could not be extracted from stored or refrigerated blood. We were on call anytime, day or night, to go to the hospital's surgery unit (not to the usual off-site donation premises) and donate blood components, using a centrifuge as described above. The difference was that our donations would be taken straight to the operating theater and used immediately. It made a difference to know that our blood was literally keeping someone else alive, right then and there. I had several oh-dark-thirty calls to donate like that. It was a bit surreal, lying on a gurney in the dead of night, a needle in each arm, hearing the centrifuge whining in the background and the clatter of carts and hurrying feet just down the passage, while watching cartoons on a TV set. (Why they chose them for donor viewing, I have no idea... sometimes it was hard not to laugh so much that the needles in our arms started to hurt!)
If they can develop artificial blood to the point that it can be used to support life, I wonder if they can develop artificial blood components - platelets and the like - to the point where they might make such "live" donations unnecessary? I think that would be just as much a step forward as would artificial life-saving whole blood products.
Here's hoping...
Peter
7 comments:
Aye. I've seen articles on this subject since at LEAST the 1970's.. and even if it's *ONLY* an emergency stopgap... well, if it's good for only an HOUR, that is ONE MORE hour to get to a Right Proper Hospital and a right proper transfusion.... and even with all the risks... LIVE beats DEAD.
Red Cross, etc. don't want my blood any more. BUT... I suspect, in a pinch, if someone was/had been bleeding out and our types matched (I know mine), s/he wouldn't give a DAMN what anyone said. Why? LIVE beats DEAD.
This isn't a new treatment. I had the same experience back in the 70s, with needles in both arms - one leading out, the other going back into me when the needed bit had been taken from it. I used to go to sleep during the 2 hours on a bed. I did gey the tome off work for it, but wasn't much good at work the next day.
Yes. A viable blood alternative would solve a lot of headaches. Especially if it was universal not requiring a type/crossmatch before use. It would also diminish the risks of contracting a Bloodborne disease. Despite stringent testing by blood banks infectious agents do slip through and infect recipients. The downside now is such a manufactured product could be tampered with by nefarious people with agendas....just like the "vaccines" that are killing young healthy athletic people.
I do apheresis whenever I donate - plasma, platelets, double reds, whatever they are in need of. It's now just a single needle. Draw the blood, backflush with saline, return the centrifuged blood with whatever is left that they didn't siphon off.
My donation center sets you up with a dvd player so you can watch whatever they have, or what you bring in (within reason).
I wonder if they can develop artificial blood components - platelets and the like
It can't be blood unless it has red blood cells, right? I wonder about white cells in it, beside platelets.
Whole blood isn't really used any longer. You get plasma, platelets, or packed red blood cells (RBCs).
Artificial blood has been a dream for several decades, but like fusion power it never really arrives.
The latest blow came when the FDA refused to allow clinical trials because blood substitutes, no matter how they're designed, raise the risk of death by almost 30% and nearly triple the rate of heart attacks in the people who receive them in clinical trials, mainly surgery and trauma patients.
As a result, the company making most promising product (Polyheme) went out of business.
If the artificial blood can be stored for long times, it would be useful in ambulances and other field medicine, even if it's not quite as good as the real thing. I get the impression these services generally carry only plasma, which keeps enough fluid in the blood vessels that circulation doesn't stop, but leaves a heavily-bleeding patient short of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. Shelf-stable artificial blood with oxygen carriers and clotting agents, and without the requirement to match blood type, would get more patients to the hospital alive even if it then has to be replaced with donated blood. And if it did not have to be replaced but could be used as a partial blood replacement until the patient made more natural blood, we could collect fewer blood donations, throw out less expired blood and components, and be much better prepared for emergencies with many victims.
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