The US Food and Drug Administration has cleared the use of the XSTAT 30 — an innovative sponge-filled gunshot wound dressing device — for use in the general population. Approved last year for battlefield use, the device can plug a gunshot wound in just 15 seconds.
The XSTAT Rapid Hemostasis System is an expandable, multi-sponge dressing that’s used to control severe, life-threatening bleeding from wounds in bodily areas where a traditional tourniquet is of no use, such as the groin or armpit. It works by pumping expandable, tablet-sized sponges into the wound, staunching bleeding while a patient is rushed to hospital.
The tablets are standard medical sponges that expand on contact with blood, and the dressing lasts for about four hours. Each applicator absorbs about a pint of blood, and up to three applicators can be used on a patient. To assist with extraction, each tablet contains a radioplaque marker that can be spotted under an X-ray — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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