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New Blood-Cleansing Device Removes Pathogens, Toxins From Blood
jan_jes writes: A team of scientists at the Wyss Institute last year described the development of a device to treat sepsis that works by mimicking the human spleen. The device cleanses pathogens and toxins from blood flowing through a dialysis-like circuit. Now the team has developed an improved device that works with conventional antibiotic therapies and is better positioned for near-term use in clinics. The improved design will be described in the October issue of Biomaterials. This approach can be administered quickly, even without identifying the infectious agent.
Being one that watched a family member slowly die from septic shock despite doctors fighting to do whatever they could, I can say that this is quite a big deal. Just like the article said, all the doctors could do was administer different antibiotics and hope. This might have made a big difference.
When I see the word Toxins, my bullshit radar activates
I am a physician and yes, my BS meter usually goes up when people who have no understanding of human anatomy, physiology, histology, biochemistry, or pathology start rambling on about toxins. But take it from person who deals with sepsis and critical ill patients on a weekly basis. Bacterial endotoxins are the real deal. There are a significant source of morbidity and mortality in severely ill patients. Also, please realize that this research is in collaboration with Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard's Engineering department.
That being said, I pulled the original article and on first read, it seems to be a potential game-changer. My questions:
1. They liken this to dialysis. Many critically ill patients can not tolerate dialysis due to fluid shifts across the membrane....What sorts of flow are required scaled up to humans would be required. Could this be run on a CRRT-HF type circuit or a SLED schedule?
2. They use FcMBL adsorbed to dialysis tubing. I only see animal studies. What, if any, interaction does this with human proteins and cell lines. e.g. if it causes hemolysis or Agglutination, this would destroy the utility.
3. What is the observed length of endotoxin/pathogen clearance? Ties back into #1.
4. I presume this is Fc based (the only description I saw was "FcMBL protein was expressed and purified from a stable transfection of CHO-DG44 cells "), is this Fc, human, murine, equine, porcine, leporine, or bovine?
More questions will come up...but I have a lecture to prepare...