Innovative wound dressing that stops blood loss within minutes may help save road accident victims

This patch-like dressing that can stop massive bleeding within minutes and is widely used by the military in 40 countries including the Indian Army.

New Delhi: A new wound dressing crafted by Indian and US scientists from the skeletal remains of shellfish may help in quick control of rapid traumatic bleeding episodes that account for 40 per cent of road accident deaths

Although commercialised over a decade ago, the scientists on Monday for the first time unveiled through a research study the science underlying the patch-like dressing that can stop massive bleeding within minutes and is widely used by the military in 40 countries including the Indian Army.

Experiments in animal models and a clinical study revealed that the patch rapidly absorbed blood and concentrated clotting components to reduce blood loss and stop bleeding quickly, even in the presence of anticoagulants (blood thinners) that are used by many on medical advice.

“The patch can stop the blood loss for all within 9 minutes whereas two other alternatives take 30 minutes and two hours respectively,” Raghunath A Mashelkar, former director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and a member of the team that published the study, told DH.

Road accidents have emerged as one of the biggest killers in India with more than 1.5 lakh deaths every year. A large number of such deaths have excessive blood loss as the main cause. The made-in-India patch, according to the scientists, can prevent many such deaths.

Years ago bioengineer Leo Mavley had a personal experience of a road accident victim, which eventually led him to develop the pad using chitosan - a molecule derived from crustacean shells. The pad also contains an engineered, porous microstructure to stop massive bleeding.

Mavley formed a company in 2008 to manufacture the novel pad and won an award given away by the Anjani Mashelkar Foundation – named after former CSIR chief’s mother – for the innovative product.

While the patch is available in the market, scientists at Harvard Medical School, Mavley, Mashelkar and other collaborating Indian scientists published the results of their study on the patch in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

While researchers in the past investigated chitosan-based wound-dressing, the focus was primarily on the intrinsic properties of the source materials or their chemical modifications overlooking the changes in the pore structure as a result of such chemical alteration.

The Indo-US team has now found that the shape of the pores plays a crucial role to stop the blood loss and the microscopic engineering plays a key role.

The bioadhesive dressing has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. It also received regulatory approvals in 28 other countries including Argentina, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Indonesia and Thailand.