By Rob Verger
A U.S. military surgical team used an innovative device to staunch the bleeding on a gunshot victim, RevMedx, the company that makes it, recently announced. That marks the first documented occasion that the device has been used in a patient clinically, the company said.
The XSTAT, as the device is called, works by injecting numerous small sponges into a wound, which quickly expand and stop the bleeding. It takes just 20 seconds after contacting blood for the sponges to expand and staunch the bleeding, the company says, and they have markers in them to make them visible under x-ray, so that they can all eventually be removed.
