Blood loss of over 30% is a life-threatening condition. Excessive blood loss results in hemorrhagic shock (HS), which is caused by insufficient blood perfusion to vital organs. As HS persists or as additional blood is lost, vital organs fail and the patient dies. HS causes 20% of all battlefield casualties that could otherwise be saved and, annually, 150,000 civilians in the US die from HS. In life-threatening HS incidents, infusions of whole blood must be administered, often within minutes of injury or the patient will die. An innovative solution for treating HS involves controlling striated muscle blood flow through muscular contractions that decrease the diameter of blood vessels in muscles, which account for 40% of the body's blood. We have developed an HS therapy that causes striated muscle tissue to contract, greatly reducing blood flow in these muscles and thereby increasing blood flow and pressure to vital organs, such as the brain, thereby offsetting multiple organ failure, permanent damage, and death. In preliminary tests, we induced HS in rats by severing their femoral arteries, then we applied our compound. One dose stops bleeding in minutes and extends the life of rats in severe HS from 40-50 minutes to 210+ minutes. Our HS therapy represents a new modality for treating HS and shows promise for both battlefield and civilian trauma situations where blood supplies may be limited or not immediately available. The ability to immediately stop bleeding will save thousands of lives each year, reduce overall demand on blood reserves, provide doctors with more time to operate, and increase the amount of time combat medics and EMTs have to respond to and to transport badly bleeding patients. We intend to seek FDA approval to market our HS therapy as an ethical drug in the US.
Keywords: Battlefield Trauma, Hemorrhagic Shock, Blood Supply, Phamaceutical, Vasoconstriction, Blood Loss, Fda, Stop Bleeding
