Startup creates VetiGel, a plant based polymer that seals wounds in seconds | Hacker News Reader

Startup creates VetiGel, a plant based polymer that seals wounds in seconds

medicalxpress.com

102 pointslelf32 comments

So a few people mention that this is a really revolutionary product and someone suggests that it should be in every first aid kit.

It's certainly cool. But apart from a few specialised applications this is not really a game changer. This is because the best defence against bleeding is tamponade. As in, a finger applying pressure. I work in an emergency department and recently we had a trauma patient that was bleeding. The trauma fellow was doing his assessment and a emergency consultant was getting very anxious and stating that the patient had to go to theatre right now as he was bleeding out. The trauma fellow was trying to complete his primary survey and wanted the emergency specialist to shut up so he stuck his finger in the wound, the patient stopped bleeding, and he turned around and got on with the rest of the survey.

The point is that bleeding is very rarely life threatening, and te couple of applications where is would be are military and intra operative.

The intra operative application would be particularly useful when a patient had a lacerated spleen or liver or when these organs are operated on. Currently we use a product called geloseal to stop bleeding on these organs - it works pretty well. But if this product works as suggested it may be better.

No-one needs this in their first aid kit, and until it is approved for use in surgery I don't think we will save any lives with it, but it is still a very cool product.

Sticking a finger in the wound works for small wounds. But what about large wounds or longs cuts of multiple centimeters where tamponade is not that easy? Wouldn't this gel also be used as a way to free the doctor's hands, allowing him/her to focus on other emergencies?

It's pretty much always that easy. Even for big long wounds. You can apply pressure to the wound, or to the artery proximal to the wound. If one doctor needs his hands then a nurse/junior doctor/medical student is recruited to stand there for up to hours

I agree with you, but you speak from the perspective of an doctor in an ER (and use medical terminology). In first aid, one would not put a finger in the wound. I would like to clear this up for laypersons:

It's either direct pressure on the wound, if possible with some padding, like this: http://www.roteskreuz.at/typo3temp/pics/17_EH_Blutung-Arm_39... If you don't have gloves, or while putting them on, have the patient do it - with a wound of this size, this usually works well.

If the wound is too big, apply direct pressure on the artery between the heart and the wound, like this: http://www.citizencorps.fema.gov/cert/IS317/medops/images/ic...

Apply just as much pressure as needed to stop the bleeding, use your fist if your fingers are not strong enough. Wait for the ambulance to apply a more permanent solution.

You're correct and provide useful information. Sorry - sometimes I forget to not use medical terms

This is a 𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒊𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒍𝒚 negative way of looking at it, in my opinion. It's obvously in a early stage, still only testing on animals. We have no idea how this product will work when it's "in every ambulance".

http://imgur.com/Jg6Zanj

I have no clue what word you used. Font choice isn't always under the user's control and Unicode is inconsistant for those people.

"Ridiculously", with poofy italic fonts.

Since I'm guessing you're on Windows, Notepad is unicode-happy and you can paste into it.

There's an iphone header in the screenshot.

So there is. Wasn't loading when I clicked it. My bad.

If I was on windows I would have control over the font my browser uses.

"Here's a nickel, kid," etcetcetc.

You can italicise by surrounding with asterisks.

Although this one is not yet on the market, here's a summary of some competing products: http://productresearchgear.com/wp-content/uploads/PRgRatings...

A couple are based on minerals (zeolite and kaolin), and intriguingly, a couple are based on chitosan (the material in shellfish and insect exoskeletons). In general, the consensus is that modern hemostatic compounds are amazing at stopping blood flow, but limited in use to life-threatening situations due to the difficulty of removing from the wound after treatment.

It will be interesting to see how this new one compares.

The kaolin formula apparently generated so much heat it could cause 2nd degree burns in the patient.

http://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/2mx653/this_gel_can_st...

The image in the reddit thread is clearly taken from the video that is part of OP's submission, yet commenter KanterBama identifies it as QuickClot. QuickClot however is a powder so I think his comment should not be considered factual information.

QuickClot however is a powder

It's confusing because the brand name has remained the same, but QuikClot is no longer offered as a powder. Instead is sold as a pre-impregnated gauze: http://www.quikclot.com/Products

In addition to changing from powder to gauze, the active ingredient was also changed. Contrary to the parent, it was the earlier zeolite that could cause burns. The current kaolin formulation is (advertised as?) non-exothermic.

QuikClot is very nice. I had the opportunity to use the 2013 formulation for the first time last weekend when someone in my kitchen was cleaning a blender with their finger. The blender was not unplugged and, well, turned on. Their finger had multiple deep lacerations down to the adipose tissue. (Fortunately this was not me!)

As one of the other posters in this thread said, the 2013 formulation is impregnated dry gauze. It worked very quickly to stop the bleeding with no heat--the top left of the package, in fact, is labeled "heat free."

We ended up going to the Palo Alto Medical Center's urgent care clinic and they applied glue instead of stitches because of the lacerations' proximity to the fingernail. The nurse was surprised I had QuikClot on hand and mistakenly thought it worked by "cauterizing the wound."

The downside is the price, about $40 for the combat gauze I used.

> The downside is the price, about $40 for the combat gauze I used.

Sounds reasonable for the use case though!

Isn't this what cyanoacrylate (crazy glue) was invented for? Battlefield wound stitching?

No. Some formulations are useful for this, but this was not its original purpose or goal: http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/06/cyanoacrylate-supe...

Based on the name, wonder if the gel is an extract from an ancient medicinal oil from the plant Vetiver (Tamil)? The medicinal properties of this plant are well known since ancient times and are chronicled in ayurvedic practice and ballads of India.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysopogon_zizanioides http://ayurvedicoils.com/tag/vetiver-oil-in-ayurveda

It seems that "Veti" just refers to the veterinary application. I've played with similar would healing biomaterials before, and from the (scarce) available materials, it looks like they're using a sodium-alginate based polymer, which can be chemically crosslinked with calcium ions. With some additional clotting factors and tissue sealing agents (tranglutaminase comes to mind), rapid wound closure looks pretty feasible.

thank you for the info, good to know it

TED video: http://www.ted.com/talks/joe_landolina_this_gel_can_make_you...

I saw something on Facebook being shared about this...they took a piece of meat and ran a tube of blood through it, then applied this gel and the bleeding stopped within seconds. It was like watching an infomercial, except this time it's real. Although it was a video, the title of it was in Japanese and I can't find it anymore. :(

This one?

http://i.imgur.com/dFJgJU6.jpg

(Trigger warning: bleeding)

Wow. This stuff should be in an emergency kit in every home.

Military is known for using aerospace-level glues such as Loctite to quickly close bleeding wounds of soldiers (~5 seconds). Is this something similar or a completely different idea?

A friend was a carpet layer, who often cut himself with the sharp knives. They always glued the wound with carpet glue. He never had problems or got scars. (Of corse, one person is not a clinical study.)

+1. There is a plenty of witch doctor tech available in the wild, and in daily use of many 'uncivilized' people, that will never gets its way to the market. Because these work, and things that work are disruptive. UPD: my fav in this particular case - solution of some Amanita mushrooms in alcohol. Cures any burn, no traces left. Works even on hot chemical burns, like from caprolactam. Will never be accepted by official med.

That I like. When we get drug that can save lifes immediately, pharma lobby will make every effort to hinder its way to the market, requiring more tests on humans. Humans ARE animals. Enough tests! Gimme the drug. Ad: 'Too effective. Humans use at own risk. 100% rabbits recovery rate'.

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