Having blood available to perform transfusions is crucial during an emergency: unfortunately blood requires special treatment, it must be refrigerated and having it always "ready for use is not easy", but how would the situation change if the medical staff were equipped with blood packs in powder to be mixed with water to be used immediately?
Transfusion medicine has been fighting for decades with the limitations represented by the difficult preservation of blood. Blood must be kept cold, it has a half-life of 42 days and then it is no longer usable, and once taken out of the refrigerator it can only be used during the following 4 hours: a real nightmare for rescuers all over the world, and causes a constant need that continually requires donors. At Saint Louis University, Missouri, i researchers are transforming a science fiction scenario in reality: powdered blood.
The project is underway produced a surrogate artificial blood, called ErythroMer: this is an embryonic result which however has achieved significant results in tests on mice. Studies have shown and erythromer it is able to properly release oxygen into tissues just like normal blood, and doctors have managed to “bring back to life” shocked rats that had lost 40% of their blood.
The results were presented last December at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology.
They will be needed still several stages research to determine possible use on the man of “powdered blood”: the next steps are those relating to tests on larger animals to exclude toxicity of all kinds, larger-scale production and subsequent human testing. If it will work, with the use of ErythroMer an enormous range of critical situations will be able to be addressed in a totally new way.
[note color=”green”]Further Reading: The page dedicated to Erythromer on the Saint Louis University website: https://otm.wustl.edu/technologies/erythromer-blood-substitute/[/grade]
