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Army halts use of new first aid item to study more
WASHINGTON (AP) - Until more testing can be done, Army medics are being told to stop using a new product just sent to the war front to help control bleeding among wounded troops. Officials were in the process of distributing some 17,000 packets of WoundStat, granules that are poured into wounds when special bandages, tourniquets or other efforts won't work. But a recent study showed that, if used directly on injured blood vessels, the granules may lead to harmful blood clots, officials said Tuesday.The Army Medical Command will continue its research and work with the manufacturer in hopes of figuring out in the next few months whether to resume use of WoundStat, said Col. Paul Cordts, head of Army health policy and services. WoundStat manufacturer TraumaCure Inc. of Bethesda, Md., said late Tuesday that "experts differ" on whether the Army's most recent testing, which put the granules into surgically-created injuries in swine, is relevant to a product used in a trauma setting. But the company said it would cooperate with the military on research to clear up any questions. The product had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. It was one of the latest in a series of Army efforts to improve survival rates on the battlefield. Today, 90 percent of injured troops survive their wounds, the highest rate of any war, Cordts said in an interview. He credited better training of combat medics, better body armor the troops wear and better tactics they use on the battlefield, as well improved bandages, tourniquets and so on. Excessive blood loss is the number one killer on the battlefield, and the Army announced in October that it was sending two potential lifesavers - the WoundStat packets and a bandage called Combat Gauze - to replace older other products that had been in use at the time. A committee of Army medics, Navy corpsmen, surgeons and others recommended the Combat Gauze bandage - which has an agent that triggers blood clotting - should be the first-line treatment for life-threatening hemorrhaging in cases where a tourniquet could not be placed, such as the armpit or groin area. The WoundStat granules were to be used if the bandage failed to work. Posted by: Steve White 2008-12-26 |
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