Foam Injector Could Stanch Blood Loss For Wounded Soldiers

By Joel Lindsey

A team of undergraduate researchers at Johns Hopkins University has developed an injectable medical foam system for use by soldiers that could help reduce blood loss in serious wounds at junctional body sites — areas of the body that are difficult to treat effectively with a tourniquet or gauze.

These junctional sites could include areas where a soldier’s limb or head is connected to the torso.

“The problem is that damage from bullets and bone fragments deep inside a junctional wound is not always visible from outside the body, and a regular clotting agent may not be able to reach the origin of the bleeding,” Sydney Rooney, the biomedical engineering student in charge of the project said in a press release published recently on the university’s website. “We came up with a foam injection system that fills the wound area and blocks the blood loss.”

The new device consists of a plastic injector approximately the size of a dry erase marker. This device houses polyol and diisocyanate in separate canisters, and, when the chemicals are mixed together, they create a quickly expanding foam.

To administer treatment, a soldier or medic would activate a mechanism inside the injector to mix together the two chemicals, which would then be injected into the wound. The chemicals would create a thick foam that could help stanch the bleeding by plugging the open wound while simultaneously providing pressure to the wound site.

“The foam fills up the wound opening, hardens, and applies pressure to the walls of the cavity,” said Allie Sanzi, a member of the research team. “This should lead to more effective targeting and treatment at the source of the bleeding.”

The foam treatment could slow the bleeding of serious wounds for up to an hour, long enough to transport a soldier off of the battlefield and to a more advanced medical treatment facility, the research team said.

Researchers working on the project designed the device for use on the battlefield, and they say it could be stored in temperatures of up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit for as long as a year.

After conducting initial tests and building a prototype model of the device, the research team received university approval to move the project into animal testing. While testing has not yet started, the students, sponsors, and academic advisors will work to move the project towards eventual military adoption.

“I don’t think it’s pie in the sky at all. I think it’s a very viable solution to a problem that’s been plaguing us on the battlefield,” said Paul D. Danielson, military veteran, medical director of pediatric surgery at All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, and a sponsor of the project.

This latest development comes on the heels of another similar device called XStat which, according to an article published by Medical Device Online, has been designed to inject tiny sponge-like discs into open gunshot wounds in order to help slow the bleeding at wound sites.