Kansas University Hospital and KU Medical Center report that the national clinical trial for the blood substitute PolyHeme failed to show significant benefit to patients.
The study enrolled patients who were at risk of dying from severe trauma and blood loss. It was conducted at 32 Level I trauma centers in 19 states, including at KU. Ambulances in Wyandotte, Douglas and Leavenworth counties carried PolyHeme to treat patients who qualified between December 2005 and August 2006.
"The professionalism of the emergency providers from these counties in training and using PolyHeme was exceptional. We were all joined by the desire to find a better way to treat people at the earliest moments of serious trauma," said Dr. Michael Moncure, principal investigator, in a news release.
There were 714 patients treated in the study and two of them were at KU. Thirteen percent of those who received PolyHeme died compared with the 10 percent who received the standard care of saline solution.
"The need to find better ways of treating patients continues," Moncure said.
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cg22165 (anonymous) says…
Confused.The title says, "real blood"; the article says, "saline solution."
Boscoe (anonymous) says…
The author of this article made a mistake. PolyHeme's promoted benefit was that it was synthetic blood that could be given to anyone without triggering an allergic reaction. Currently EMTs give saline to boost blood volume (and thus stabilize blood pressure), but saline (and plasma) don't contain red blood cells and thus don't help oxygenate cells. People that have lost a lot of blood tend to die from a lack of blood cells before they can get to the hospital. As most are aware, the two problems with giving real blood on-site by EMTs is that it's prohibitive to carry around a bunch of different blood types in the ambulance and it's dangerous to do blood typing in the field. Standard practice is to give saline and get to the hospital quickly.
toe (anonymous) says…
This was a lousy trial and used the people of Douglas County as guinea pigs. You had to opt out by wearing a bracelet. Next time, only elected officials should be used as medical guinea pigs.
AussieDog (anonymous) says…
We should stop using defibrilators, cpr, and aspirin too. Eventhough they save lives everyday, they were tested on human guinea pigs too. The indication for Polyheme is for when blood is not available. When your children or grandchildren are in rural Ks., and are bleeding out, you'll remember, Polyheme is no better than blood , I wish I had some.