The next big step in medicine, blood substitutes and blood cleaning   Message List    

 

Reported February 5, 2007 
Medicine's Next Big Thing: Better Blood (Part 1 of 3)

ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- We're in a world of test-tube babies, artificial hearts, and even cloned animals. But when it comes to blood, we've been stuck in the dark ages. A way to disinfect blood or even replace it would transform the lives of millions of people, and it's just around the corner.
Jamie Robertson is a walking miracle. Nine months ago, he nearly died. "I tripped and fell and hit the back of my head on the sidewalk," he says. "My brain was bruised and had blood clots in it, so they had to do surgery immediately."
Robertson is one of more than a million Americans who suffer a serious brain injury every year. Thirty-percent of those patients die.
"There is no magic pill or treatment for traumatic brain injury in terms of salvaging brain tissue. If you can get oxygen to that tissue, you can salvage a lot of tissue," Bruce Spiess, M.D., a cardiac anesthesiologist at VCU Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia, tells Ivanhoe.
Dr. Spiess' man-made blood substitute called Oxycyte does just that. It's made from perfluorocarbons (PFCs), a compound similar to non-stick Teflon in frying pans.
He says when you take a carbon atom and add fluoride to it, it can carry a huge amount of oxygen. In a brain injury, swelling makes it tough for red blood cells to carry vital oxygen. Oxycyte's particles are much smaller.
"They are about 1/50th to 1/100 the size of a red blood cell," Dr. Spiess says. Given intravenously, Oxycyte carries oxygen 50-times more effectively than blood. "Within about a half hour to 40 minutes after the patients received the Oxycyte, their brain oxygen levels doubled to quadrupled."
Severe brain injuries kill one in three people. In a study on nine people who got Oxycyte, only two died. No survivors had permanent damage.
"They all walked out of the hospital, and today, they appear to be neurologically intact," Dr. Spiess says.
Robertson got Oxycyte and was playing golf just two months later.
"All the doctors said it was amazing how fast I recovered," he says. "I look at life a little bit different because I know how lucky I am."
Oxycyte could also help patients recover from spinal cord injuries, heart attacks and strokes. If it gets FDA approval, it will be the first drug ever approved in the United States for traumatic brain injuries.
Across the country in San Diego, another break-through is under study -- the Hemopurifier. It cleans infected blood.
"In essence, the cartridge is mimicking your natural immune response of clearing viruses and toxins from circulation before cells and organs can be infected," James Joyce, CEO of Aethlon Medical, tells Ivanhoe.
The Hemopurifier works like a dialysis machine. Antibodies on spaghetti-like fibers capture and remove viruses as blood filters through it. It can clear blood of potential bio-weapons like smallpox, as well as measles, mumps and the flu.
Joyce says it's the first observation of a medical device that has the ability to reduce viral load in a chronic infectious disease. That could prove life-saving for patients with HIV or hepatitis C (HCV). It won't cure these infections, but routine use could keep the virus at low levels, making current drugs more effective.
"This mimics what your natural immune system is trying to accomplish," Joyce says.
Whether it's a blood cleaner or a blood substitute, these breakthroughs have us looking forward to the next big thing in medicine.
 
If you would like more information, please contact:
Aethlon Medical
info@aethlon.com
Oxycyte Information
vcures@vcu.edu