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U.S. Military Developing Ultrasonic Tourniquet

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the i'm-not-bleeding-you-insensitive-clot dept.

Burlap writes to tell us the MIT Technology Review is reporting on a new DARPA venture to create an "ultrasonic tourniquet" to help stem bleeding on injuries sustained in battle. The project plans to commit $51 million over the course of 4 years. From the article: "[I]t aims to create a cuff-like device that wraps around a wounded limb. Rather than applying pressure to the wound to stem the flow of blood, the device would use focused beams of ultrasound (sound waves above the audible frequencies) to non-invasively clot vessels no matter how deep they are."

4 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. More uses? by Centurix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Maybe they could invest in making a device that un-clots blood using the same technique? If they could say stop a clot before a stroke kicks in somehow.

    --
    Task Mangler
  2. Reversible? by oostevo · · Score: 4, Interesting
    But how reversible is it?

    Granted, my only medical experience is treating badly banged up Boy Scouts, but I can see two issues with this thing:

    1) How reversible is it? I mean, once the wounded person gets to advanced medical care in a hospital or the battlefield equivalent, how easy is it to remove the clots? I know this (thryombolysis) can be quite tricky for hospitals to pull off as it is in cases like heart attacks and pulmonary embolisms.

    2) What about partially formed clots? I can only imagine the damage caused by huge amounts of partially formed clots floating around in the body wreaking havoc.

    Granted, if the person would clearly die without the treatment anyway, then those points are void. But surely this has more side effects than tying a piece of cloth around a limb and cinching really tightly.

    At any rate, those seem like some pretty clever engineers and scientists at work, and I certainly hope this device works as well as they hope it does.

    --
    In soviet russia, You ask not what country do for you, but what you do for country!
    Oh wait...
  3. Re:Another great new weapon by Ihlosi · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I believe this could also be a weapon whose end result would be indistinguishable from death by "natural causes".



    Sorry, but no. It would make a very unpractical weapon, if anything.



    Consider this: You have to apply the thing to a person's skin, since ultrasound transmission from air to tissue is extremely poor. If you are close enough to apply stuff to someone's skin, there's a myriad of other, much simpler ways of killing the person. Some are even indistinguishable from death by natural causes, and this means that they will not leave massive blood clots in the vitctim's system.

  4. On saving limbs by Latent+Heat · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Generally, a tourniquet is a big no-no for first aid as taught by the Red Cross -- the notion is that the first aid provider is making a decision regarding the limb.

    The thinking regarding tourniquets among the U.S. military in Iraq is that they have such a rapid response in getting a wounded soldier to a hospital that they are handing out tourniquets to the ranks. The belief is that most wounded will get to surgery fast enough that the effect of the tourniquet is not a factor in deciding to save the limb.

    This device appears to make a decision regarding the limb -- it may be a last-resort measure for the field for perhaps an instrument for conducting surgery at the hospital.