Friday, December 30, 2011

Kenneth Mann named 'Distinguished Scientist'


A professor from the College of Medicine has recently been recognized by one of the top cardiovascular organizations in the world.
Professor of Biochemistry and Medicine Kenneth Mann, Ph.D was named a Distinguished Scientist by the American Heart Association (AHA), an honor reserved for those whose work has advanced understanding of cardiovascular disease, a University Communications article stated.
The award, created in 2003, progresses the AHA's goal of "building healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and strokes," the article stated.
The research that propelled Mann to Distinguished Scientist status focused on blood coagulation. The National Institutes of Heath, the AHA and other areas in the pharmaceutical industry supported his publication, the article stated.
Mann's early career focused on the production of the protein thrombin and pharmaceuticals' influence on it, University Communications stated.
Mann and his research team have focused on computer simulation and clinical trials to determine the effects of various pharmaceuticals on blood clotting and thrombin production, Mann said.
"Because our work flows in through all areas, we cover everything from cardiology to vascular surgery and trauma," he said. "We've even written a lot of current textbooks on blood clotting and hematology."
Mann's contributions have been recognized by various medical associations and have received awards such as the E. Donnall Thomas prize and the Stratton Medal of the American Society of Hematology, according to University Communications.
"I got involved in blood clotting for a lot of reasons, and was mentored and tutored by very nice people over my career," Mann said.
His research career and training of graduate and medical students has produced scientists in the blood coagulation field. Mann attributes his success to his students, collaborators and his wife, Jeanette, the article stated. 

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Z-Medica Donates $1.5 Million in QuikClot



WALLINGFORD, Conn., Dec 08, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Z-Medica Corporation, a medical device company which develops and distributes innovative hemostatic agents, announced that it has donated $1.5 million in QuikClot(R) the company's life-saving hemostatic agents, to AmeriCares, a nonprofit global health and disaster relief organization. The QuikClot products will be used by AmeriCares for disaster relief efforts as well as its ongoing health programs around the globe, helping to prevent loss of life and limb. Z-Medica had previously donated $150,000 of its QuikClot products to AmeriCares for use in Haiti following the earthquake there in 2010.

"We had great success providing QuikClot for use in Haiti following the earthquake and for other relief efforts and we are grateful that Z-Medica has responded to our request for an additional donation of this life-saving tool," said Dr. Frank J. Bia, AmeriCares Medical Director. "QuikClot is now a standard part of our response efforts and we make sure it is part of our aid deliveries for disasters and our ongoing partnerships."

QuikClot is an ideal product for use in the field, including disaster relief areas or by first responders, due to its ease-of-use and ability to achieve hemostasis in as little as three minutes. The United States Department of Defense currently uses QuickClot Combat Gauze(TM) as the official first-line hemostatic treatment for traumatic bleeding in all branches of the United States military. QuikClot is also regularly used by first-responders and medical professionals in the field and in hospital clinical environments such as the cardiac catheterization laboratory, interventional radiology, the emergency room and virtually anywhere else where bleeding needs to be controlled.

"AmeriCares is an extremely professional and efficient organization and we have the highest confidence that they will save many lives with this donation," said Brian Herrman, Chief Executive Officer, Z-Medica. "Every US soldier, marine, and airman carries QuikClot at all times, which has saved many lives. Our mission at Z-Medica, therefore, is to ensure that all medical professionals and first responders everywhere have access to QuikClot, in both disaster areas, as well as in day-to-day situations such as hospital trauma units, emergency rooms and the cardiac catheterization labs."

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Woman's face catches on fire during surgery

A woman's face caught on fire during routine surgery in the US.
Kim Grice, 29, was undergoing surgery to have cysts removed from her brain when her face erupted in flames.
Grice was airlifted to a Burn Unit with burns to her face and neck.
Grice's father, Ted Grice, told a local newspaper his daughter's face had "caught on fire" during surgery.
"The doctors and the hospital are not telling us what happened," he said. "They said they had never seen anything like it before and they are terribly sorry that it happened."
Grice's mother said she was in shock.
"This is not what happens with a routine outpatient surgery."
According to ABC News, however, "flash fires"are not uncommon.
Between 550 and 650 surgical fires occur each year in the US alone. More than half of surgical fires happen inside a patient's airway or on the patient's upper body, while a quarter of surgical fires happen on other parts of the body.
About 70 per cent of "flash fires" are ignited by electrosurgical tools commonly known as Bovies, devices that use a high-frequency electric current to cut tissue or stop bleeding, reported MSNBC.
Twenty per cent of fires are sparked by hot wires, light sources, burrs or defibrillators while about 10 per cent are sparked by lasers.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

ProFibrix Phase II with FibrocapsTM Meets Primary Endpoint – On Track for Phase III in 2012

LEIDEN, The Netherlands & SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- ProFibrix B.V., a leader in the development of innovative products for hemostasis, today announced that its multicenter Phase II clinical trial with Fibrocaps in liver resection surgery resulted in a highly statistically significant 50% reduction in mean time to hemostasis (TTH) compared to active control.
A total of 56 patients were enrolled in the company’s Dutch prospective, randomized, controlled, multi-center Phase II study with lead product Fibrocaps for mild to moderate surgical bleeding. The study results show that Fibrocaps has a very good safety profile along with rapid hemostatic activity that succeeds in significantly reducing mean time to hemostasis, the primary end point of the Phase II trial.
Professor dr. R.J. Porte from the University Medical Center Groningen, the Lead Investigator of the study, said: “We’re very pleased with the excellent performance of Fibrocaps in this Phase II study. I have no doubt that the substantial reduction in mean time to hemostasis we report for Fibrocaps is clinically very meaningful, and demonstrates the strength of this unique dry powder formulation of fibrinogen and thrombin.”
Jan Öhrström, CEO of ProFibrix said: “Our clinical data constitute the strongest result ever reported for fibrin sealants in a Phase II study in this indication. These positive results ensure that we remain on track to initiate a pivotal Phase III trial in H1 2012, and target a BLA filing in 2013. In the coming months we expect to report on the results of the Phase II trial we are running in parallel in the U.S. Altogether we believe that the positive outcome of the European and U.S studies should allow us to generate strong support from investors as we continue developing Fibrocaps and its line extensions.”

Friday, November 18, 2011

BAX Q3 2011

In terms of individual business performance and beginning with BioScience, global BioScience sales of $1.5 billion increased 9% in the third quarter. Excluding foreign currency, BioScience sales increased 4%. Within the product categories, recombinant sales of $552 million grew 5%. Excluding foreign currency, sales declined 1% as growth of 4% in the U.S. was offset by the expected impact from recent tenders and somewhat slower demand across Europe, given strong performance in the previous quarter. On a year-to-date basis, excluding the impact of tenders we discussed, global recombinant sales growth, excluding currency, is in mid single digits consistent with global market demand.
Moving on to Plasma Proteins. Sales in the quarter were $372 million and advanced 8%. Excluding the impact of foreign currency, sales grew 4%. Growth across the various Plasma Proteins was significantly offset by lower albumin sales as a result of temporary supply constraints and delays in the clearance of shipments in China as a result of new testing guidelines that were implemented there late last year. Combined, these 2 items impacted sales in the quarter by approximately $20 million.
Sales in the U.S. improved sequentially across multiple products in the portfolio, including FEIBA, PD Factor VIII and ARALAST, but were down 8% year-over-year driven primarily by the supply constraints of albumin, whereas, international sales climbed 10% driven by strong demand for FEIBA and PD Factor VIII despite certain tender delays in Eastern Europe.
In Antibody Therapy, sales of $380 million increased 13%. Excluding foreign currency, sales were up 11%, driven by a robust demand for GAMMAGARD LIQUID and the launch of SubQ. Growth in this category of 11% also reflects some ongoing benefits related to Octapharma of at least $20 million in the third quarter.
Sales in regenerative medicine, which includes our BioSurgery products, totaled $143 million and increased 10%. Excluding foreign currency, sales increased 5% driven by high single-digit growth of Fibrin Sealants. This performance was offset by lower ACTIFUSE revenues triggered by the temporary disruption in the U.S. channel resulting from the planned transition to a direct sales model from ApaTech's former distributor model that we mentioned last quarter....

JnJ Q3 2011

I will now review the Medical Devices & Diagnostics segment results.
Worldwide Medical Devices & Diagnostics segment sales of $6.3 billion grew 1.7% operationally as compared to the same period in 2010. Currency had a positive impact of 4.4 points, resulting in a total sales increase of 6.1%.
Sales in the U.S. were down 0.7%, while sales outside the U.S. increased on an operational basis by 3.9%. Excluding drug-eluting stent, worldwide sales increased over 3% on an operational basis.....
During the quarter, Ethicon received a complete response letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regarding its Biologics License Application or BLA for the Fibrin Pad. The Fibrin Pad is a novel product candidate that combines Ethicon to biomaterials and plasma-derived Biologics to aid in stopping bleeding during surgery. This BLA marks the first of multiple submissions and approvals the company will pursue to deliver this novel product to surgeons and their patients. We are not planning on conducting new clinical trials to support our response. Ethicon is taking a phased approach to the development of the Fibrin Pad, including building a state-of-the-art facility to scale up supply in order to meet anticipated demand.
Ethicon Endo-Surgery achieved operational growth of 3.4% in the third quarter of 2011, with the U.S. sales down 2.5% and sales outside the U.S. up 7.6% operationally. Growth was driven by increased market share for advanced sterilization products and outside the U.S., new product launches and the continued shift to minimally-invasive surgery drove double-digit growth for harmonic products and strong sales results for Endo products....
Steve Beuchaw - Morgan Stanley, Research Division
We'd always be happy to join you in any of those discussions. One other question. I just wanted to get your latest thoughts, Dominic, on where things are headed with the FDA approval processes, both the 5, 10-Ks in for novel technologies. On one hand it seems like we're seeing an acceleration of legislative activity aimed at making these processes simpler, but then on the other hand we see CMS and the FDA working harder to coordinate approval and reimbursement for new technologies. So at this stage, to what extent do you think these are good indicators of where things might go? Maybe 5, 10-Ks get more predictable, and new technologies get a little bit more scrutiny. Where do you see this going?
Dominic J. Caruso
Yes, it's a great question. Look, we would just be speculating if we gave you sort of any definitive kind of position on this. But it is true that there is a movement to try to differentiate, if you will, the products that should get 5, 10-K and rapid approval in the marketplace because of relatively low risk or they're obviously the predicate devices. It's something that should be comparable to the current device and differentiate those from the products that would require more sort of PMA and extensive clinical trials as the products become or those development innovations become more complex. I think a company like Johnson & Johnson having the expertise that we have across a broad portfolio of not only medical device products, but obviously our pharmaceutical business as well positions us very well to have those kinds of discussions and dialogue with the FDA of what's appropriate in evaluating the particular product in question. So I would just say you've made a good observation. I can't predict where it's going to come or how it's going to come out, but I believe that we're in a great position to have that dialogue with the FDA and help them arrive at a sensible solution for the industry.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Vascular Solutions Q3 2011

Net sales of hemostat products (primarily consisting of the D-Stat Dry, D-Stat Flowable and D-Stat Radial products) were $5.7 million in the third quarter, a decrease of 6% from the third quarter of 2010 and a decrease of 4% from the second quarter of 2011. "The hemostatic patch market has become even more price competitive. At the very end of the second quarter we launched our new Silver versions of the D-Stat Dry and Thrombix(R) products, which add an antimicrobial ingredient to the patches while leaving our pricing unchanged. We continue to expect these Silver versions to allow us to at least maintain our market-leading position in the hemostat patch market into 2012," Mr. Root said.
As previously disclosed, King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. notified Vascular Solutions on July 6, 2011, that it was electing to not proceed further with efforts to obtain a surgical use indication from the FDA for the company's Thrombi-Gel products and to not complete development of the company's Thrombi-Paste products. As a result, Vascular Solutions recognized an additional $2.6 million of license revenue during the third quarter of 2011 as the remaining deferred license revenue originally allocated to the Thrombi-Paste products and the surgical use indication of the Thrombi-Gel products as part of the agreements entered into with King in 2007. Starting in the fourth quarter of 2011, amortization of deferred revenue is expected to be $87,000 per quarter.


Hemostat Products: It appears that revenues will continue to be flat or declining in Vascular Solution’s hemostat product lines. Management cited competitive pricing pressure for Vascular Solution’s D-Stat Dry product. However, the company could see upside if Marine Polymer’s injunction against competitor HemCon is enforced. Marine Polymer was awarded an injunction in September but Hemcon was subsequently given a stay. The injunction would prevent HemCon from selling such products as the HemCon Bandage and the Chitoflex and Dental Dressings. Vascular Solutions management did say that launches of Silver versions of the D-Stat Dry and Thrombix products, which include a new antimicrobial ingredient, would enable the company to maintain hemostat market share.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

CRY Q3 10Q, FDA Disapproves Perclot IDE.....Perclot China Trial underway......


10Q - PerClot and HemoStase
Revenues from the sale of hemostats, consisting of PerClot and HemoStase, decreased 71% for the three months ended September 30, 2011 as compared to the three months ended September 30, 2010. Revenues from the sale of PerClot and HemoStase decreased 40% for the nine months ended September 30, 2011 as compared to the nine months ended September 30, 2010. The revenue decreases in the three and nine months ended September 30, 2011 were primarily due to a decrease in hemostat sales volume in domestic markets, partially offset by an increase in sales volume in international markets. The revenue decrease in the nine months ended September 30, 2011 was also impacted by a decrease in average selling prices, which decreased revenues by 6%.
International hemostat revenues increased 24% for the three months ended September 30, 2011 and 55% for the nine months ended September 30, 2011 as compared to the three and nine months ended September 30, 2010, respectively. This increase is primarily due to an increase in international sales of PerClot in the 2011 periods over the international sales of HemoStase in the corresponding 2010 periods. Management believes that international PerClot revenues have been favorably impacted by the Company’s ability to market PerClot for all surgical specialties, expanding the direct European sales force into Austria, and PerClot’s product performance when compared to other hemostatic agents.
The decrease in domestic sales volume for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2011 was due to the Company’s planned discontinuation of sales of HemoStase in late March 2011. The Company recognized no domestic hemostat sales in the second or third quarters of 2011, subsequent to the discontinuance of HemoStase sales, as PerClot is not yet approved for commercial distribution in domestic markets. The Company anticipates this loss of domestic hemostat sales to result in a decrease in total hemostat sales for the remainder of 2011 when compared to the corresponding 2010 periods.


The Company will not be able to sell PerClot in the U.S. in future years until U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) approval is granted. On March 31, 2011 CryoLife filed an Investigational Device Exemption (“IDE”) with the FDA seeking approval to begin clinical trials for the purpose of obtaining Premarket Approval to distribute PerClot in the U.S. On April 29, 2011 the FDA disapproved CryoLife’s IDE filing with numerous comments and questions. CryoLife is currently addressing those comments and questions and anticipates refiling its IDE for PerClot in the fourth quarter of 2011.


Q3 Report - Brackets have been added-
Ashley Lee...
We experienced some delays in getting PerClot approved in certain international markets and some competitive issues in the EU, which leaves us to slightly lower our guidance.

Worldwide BioGlue revenues were up 10% for the third quarter and up 5% for the nine month period. These increases were predominantly driven by volume increases, particularly in Japan, due to the recent launch of the product. This was the largest year-over-year quarterly increase for BioGlue revenues, since third quarter of 2008, and we continue to remain enthusiastic about the opportunity in Japan.
Total sales in the third quarter in Japan were $651,000 and year-to-date in Japan were approximately $1.2 million. To-date, approximately 250 surgeons have been trained and over 160 accounts have ordered product. We expect another large order from Japan before the end of the year.

PerClot sales for the third quarter were $620,000 and were $1.9 million year-to-date. We experienced some delays in getting PerClot approved in certain international markets and some competitive issues in the EU, which leaves us to slightly lower our guidance. However, despite these delays, our international revenues from the sale of powdered hemostats in the third quarter still increased 24% compared to the prior year, and 55% for the nine month period compared to the prior year.


Steve Anderson...As Ashley has discussed earlier in third quarter of 2010, we announced our first technology acquisition and that we have signed a worldwide manufacturing and distribution agreement for a unique powered hemostatic agent PerClot with Starch Medical of San Jose (Shanghai), California (China).
(Chinese) PerClot is an ideal replacement for the hemostatic powder that we had been distributing worldwide. The primary difference is that PerClot’s gross margin will be 80%.....we filed our IDE for PerClot with the FDA in March of this year. The FDA had questions about our submission that we have been addressing. We will be reaching our IDE to the FDA in mid November. We expect to begin the clinical trial for PerClot (Link to current trial Xijing Hospital of Digestive Diseases, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China) during the second quarter of next year. The clinical trial will probably involve about 300 patients, 150 PerClot patients and 150 control patients. We expect that with six months enrollment and three months follow-up of these patients that we will file our PMA in the second quarter of 2013.

  • In which circumstances does the FDA disapprove or withdraw an IDE?
    FDA may disapprove or withdraw approval of an IDE application if FDA finds that:
    1. The sponsor has not complied with applicable requirements of the IDE Regulation, any other applicable regulations or statutes, or any condition of approval imposed by an IRB or FDA.
    2. The application or a report contains untrue statements or omits required material information.
    3. The sponsor fails to respond to a request for additional information within the time prescribed by FDA.
    4. There is reason to believe that the risks to the human subjects are not outweighed by the anticipated benefits to the subjects or the importance of the knowledge to be gained, that informed consent is inadequate, that the investigation is scientifically unsound, or that the device as used is ineffective.
    5. It is unreasonable to begin or to continue the investigation due to the way in which the device is used or the inadequacy of:
      (i) the report of prior investigations or the investigational plan; (ii) the methods, facilities, and controls used for the manufacturing, processing, packaging, storage, and, where appropriate, installation of the device; or (iii) the monitoring and review of the investigation.
Q & A...
Matt Dolan - Roth Capital Partners
Great. First question on the guidance, just looking at the revenue at this point it implies maybe around 10% sequential uptick in Q4. So how far below $122 million should we expect or what gets you to that type of sequential uptick, meaning, is there a category that improves something on the macro level that rebounds?
Ashley Lee
We think that the upside is in the Cardiogenesis product line and the PerClot product line as well as potentially BioGlue in Japan.
Matt Dolan - Roth Capital Partners
Okay. But given your guidance on those categories it still requires a pretty big sequential uptick?
Ashley Lee
Yeah well the possibility exists again that we could do better and then we expect to do better in Cardiogenesis, PerClot, and BioGlue in Japan. And that -- we think that that’s, we have more upside in those three areas than the rest of the business.
Matt Dolan - Roth Capital Partners
Okay. And then on the earnings guidance just to clarify, I think the delta between adjusted and GAAP last quarter was $0.05 as supposed to an $0.08 differential at mid year. So I wanted to make sure that that’s the reason for the increase in the earnings guidance? And secondly the implied guidance for Q4 cuts EPS basically in half. So I’m just trying to understand why that would be?
Ashley Lee
The primary driver in non-GAAP, the increase in non-GAAP EPS as compared to the end of the second quarter is primarily due to the shifting of some R&D expenses due to some delays and getting some studies started, as those will be shifting out of 2011 into 2012. As it relates to the fourth quarter we provided for some additional expenses in the fourth quarter this year to account for the ongoing discovery and the acceleration of the discovery in our litigation with Medafor.
Raymond Myers - Benchmark
And that was going to be my next question. So let’s get right to that. Roughly how much Medafor litigation expense should we expect?
Ashley Lee
If you go through the end of the third quarter we had spent about $1.4 million and we’re expecting a similar amount in the fourth quarter of this year about $1.4 million.....

Cryolife announce first patients enrolled for BioFoam (Bovine) trial.

ATLANTA, Oct. 24, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- CryoLife, Inc., CRY +2.52% , a leading tissue processing and medical device Company focused on cardiac and vascular surgery, today announced that it has enrolled the first patient in its U.S. Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) clinical trial for its BioFoam® Surgical Matrix protein hydrogel technology. In connection with the trial, BioFoam will be used as an adjunct to conservative measures of achieving hemostasis on newly resected liver parenchyma.
The approved IDE is for a prospective, multicenter, randomized feasibility study evaluating safety outcomes of BioFoam as compared to a standard topical hemostatic agent. The feasibility investigation will be conducted at up to three investigational sites and will enroll 20 eligible subjects with 10 subjects in each treatment group.
"We are pleased to begin enrolling patients in our IDE study, which is a milestone in our efforts to obtain BioFoam approval for distribution in the U.S.," said Steven G. Anderson, CryoLife president and chief executive officer. BioFoam is based on the same protein hydrogel technology platform from which BioGlue Surgical Adhesive was developed read more
HERE.

A keratin biomaterial gel hemostat derived from human hair: evaluation in a rabbit model of lethal liver injury.

Abstract

Effective hemostatic dressings that are compatible with tissues are needed. Keratins are a class of biomaterials that can be derived by extraction of proteins from human hair. We have recently discovered that keratin biomaterials have hemostatic characteristics and hypothesize that a keratin hydrogel having the ability to absorb fluid and bind cells may be an effective hemostat. The goal of this study was to test a keratin hydrogel and evaluate it compared to current hemostats. Thirty-two New Zealand white rabbits received a lethal liver injury. Eight animals each were assigned to negative control, QuickClot, HemCon bandage, and keratin treatment groups. Vital stats and other data were recorded during surgery and all surviving animals were sacrificed after 72 h. Histology was conducted on all surviving animals. Twenty-four-hour survival rates were 0%, 62.5%, 62.5%, and 75% for the negative control, QuickClot, HemCon, and keratin groups, respectively. Other outcomes included blood loss, mean arterial pressure, heart rate, shock index, and liver histology. All of the hemostats were statistically better than the negative control group at late operative time points. The keratin group consistently performed as well as, or better than, the commercial hemostats. Histology showed an interesting healing response at the hemostat-liver interface in the keratin group.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Surgeons get tips and tricks for contending with antiplatelet therapy

Lisbon, Portugal - A session on the best practice for operating on patients taking antiplatelet therapies was well received at the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS) 2011 Annual Meeting this week, with attendees saying they welcomed advice on this topic in light of the newer antiplatelet agents coming onto the market.
Surgeons generally want to stop antiplatelet therapy several days before an operation to reduce bleeding risk, but this can have a negative impact in terms of thrombotic events, particularly if a patient has recently had a drug-eluting stent (DES) placed. And while there are recommendations for when to stop antiplatelet therapy prior to surgery—generally advised at five days beforehand for clopidogrel, three days for ticagrelor, and seven days for prasugrel—"the reality is that very often we have to proceed with surgery much faster," surgeon Dr A Pieter Kappetein (Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands) told the meeting.

Cardiologist Dr Freek Verheugt (Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) acknowledged that "the eternal difficulty for the surgeon is balancing the risks of bleeding and thrombosis," in a sentiment that was echoed in another talk on "tips and tricks for operating under antiplatelet therapy," given by Dr Miguel Sousa Uva (Hospital da Cruz Vermelha Portuguesa, Lisbon).

Both Verheught and Sousa Uva stressed that the key to determining what to do about dual antiplatelet therapy in the face of surgery is to use individual risk assessment, on a case-by-case basis, and they advised using an algorithm to aid in this decision, taken from the latest European guidelines on revascularization.

Following the session, cochair Dr Jose Luis Pomar (Hospital Clinico de Barcelona, Spain) observed: "This is a very interesting topic. After this, I believe we are still ignorant, but perhaps we have a bit more understanding than before."

Monday, October 3, 2011

Fibrinogen and Hemostasis: A Primary Hemostatic Target for the Management of Acquired Bleeding

Jerrold H. Levy, MD, FAHA,
Fania Szlam, MMSc,
Kenichi A. Tanaka, MDand
Roman M. Sniecienski, MD

+Author Affiliations
From the Department of Anesthesiology, Emory University School of Medicine, Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology and Critical Care, Emory Healthcare, Atlanta, Georgia.

Address correspondence to Jerrold H. Levy, MD, FAHA, Department of Anesthesiology, Emory University School of Medicine, Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology and Critical Care, Emory Healthcare, Atlanta, GA.

Abstract

Fibrinogen plays several key roles in the maintenance of hemostasis. Its cleavage by thrombin and subsequent polymerization to form fibrin strands provides the structural network required for effective clot formation. During cases of acute blood loss, attempts to maintain circulating volume and tissue perfusion often involve the infusion of crystalloids, colloids, and red blood cells. Intravascular volume resuscitation, although vital, frequently results in dilution of the remaining clotting factors and onset of dilutional coagulopathy. In such cases, fibrinogen is the first coagulation factor to decrease to critically low levels. There currently is a lack of awareness among physicians regarding the significance of fibrinogen during acute bleeding and, at many centers, fibrinogen is not monitored routinely during treatment. We reviewed current studies that demonstrate the importance of considering fibrinogen replacement during the treatment of acquired bleeding across clinical settings. If depleted, the supplementation of fibrinogen is key for the rescue and maintenance of hemostatic function; however, the threshold at which such intervention should be triggered is currently poorly defined. Although traditionally performed via administration of fresh frozen plasma or cryoprecipitate, the use of lyophilized fibrinogen (concentrate) is becoming more prevalent in some countries. Recent reports relating to the efficacy of fibrinogen concentrate suggest that it is a viable alternative to traditional hemostatic approaches, which should be considered. The prospective study of fibrinogen supplementation in acquired bleeding is needed to accurately assess the range of clinical settings in which this management strategy is appropriate, the most effective method of supplementation and a comprehensive safety profile of fibrinogen concentrate used for such an approach.
Accepted July 11, 2011.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Study: Kids Given Plasma Despite No Clear Benefit

Many kids get plasma transfusions when there's little evidence they do much good, according to a new study.
Transfusions of so-called fresh frozen plasma are sometimes given to both kids and adults whose blood has problems clotting, or if they have lost a lot of blood from surgery or an accident.
But only a couple of studies in kids have shown that plasma transfusions are a good option for one specific heart surgery procedure. The rest of the time, researchers have found they don't work, or that their benefit is uncertain.
In the current study, pediatricians reported that almost three percent of kids admitted to children's hospitals in the U.S. had a transfusion. More than half of the transfusion recipients were under a year old, a third had heart disease and 70 percent were critically ill.
"For all we know, it may be used entirely appropriately," said Dr. John Puetz, from Saint Louis University, who worked on the study.
"The problem is, we don't have the evidence base... to demonstrate what's inappropriate use and what's not inappropriate use."
"The concern," he told Reuters Health, "is a fair number of children are being exposed to (fresh frozen plasma) without published data showing what it's effective for."
The problem with that, researchers said, is that the transfusions always come with a risk of side effects and complications, which range from allergic reactions to heart failure, if doctors give kids more plasma than their hearts can handle.
Puetz's team consulted a database of about 3.2 million admissions to 40 different children's hospitals in the last decade. According to hospital records, just under three percent of those kids got a plasma transfusion, most in the intensive care unit.
The researchers couldn't tell why the plasma was used in each case, or how much of it kids got. But only about one-third of the kids' records also showed they had a heart procedure known as a cardiopulmonary bypass -- when a pump does the job of the heart and lungs during surgery, and a plasma transfusion (along with red blood cells) is indicated.
There were 24 recorded cases of acute lung injuries related to the transfusions, but the authors write in the Journal of Pediatrics that it's hard to tell how many kids had other complications.
"The biggest reason not to give any transfusion... is the risk of the complications that you can have," said Dr. Lorne Holland, of the Nashville-based pathology services company PathGroup, Inc., who has researched the use of fresh frozen plasma. That would include lung injuries and congestive heart failure, as well as more minor itchy allergic reactions.
Still, Puetz added, "No one's really looked to see what all the possible side effects may be."
A typical plasma transfusion would cost a few hundred dollars, Holland said.
He thinks that too many kids are still getting the transfusions, despite the general lack of evidence that they work -- or are better than other alternatives such as whole-blood transfusions in certain cases.
"I think the numbers in that study and ones in adults are too high," Holland, who was not involved in the study, told Reuters Health. "A lot of physicians are convinced by evidence of, 'That one patient, that one time, seemed to do better when I gave it to them.'"
Puetz said it's still not clear whether plasma transfusions are being done too often, based on the lack of data. He called for more critical studies to see if fresh frozen plasma transfusions really do work in all of the cases where they're commonly used in kids.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Scientists Use Stem Cells for Blood 'Self-Transfusion'

Researchers report that they used stem cells to create cultured red blood cells and then successfully injected the blood cells back into the human donor who provided the stem cells in the first place.
The findings raise the possibility of creating individualized blood supplies without making people donate their own blood for storage before they need a transfusion, a potentially dicey situation if someone is ill.
The researchers said that the cultured red blood cells created with the help of stem cells from the donor -- and then inserted back into the donor -- lived about as long as regular blood cells normally do.
The study, the first to show that red blood cells created from stem cells can survive in the human body, is "a major breakthrough for the transplant community," Dr. Luc Douay, senior study author and a professor of hematology at Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, said in a news release from the American Society of Hematology.
"There is a dire need for an alternative source of transfusable blood products, especially with the risk of infection from emergent new viruses that comes with traditional transfusion," Douay explained. "Producing red blood cells in culture is promising since other efforts to create alternative sources have not yet been as successful as once hoped."
However, one expert said the research isn't quite as exciting as it may sound.
Creating red blood cells from your own stem cells is "going to be an extremely complex process, extremely expensive, not very convenient and uncommonly used," explained Dr. Paul Holland, a blood banking specialist and a clinical professor of medicine and pathology at the University of California, Davis Medical Center.
"Most people who need a transfusion need it now, and they use blood from donors that's already there," he said. One exception might be if someone has a condition that makes it difficult to match his or her blood to other donors and it's dangerous to draw and save their own blood, he said.
The findings appear in the Sept. 1 issue of the journal Blood.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Cook Endoscopy Recalls Disposable Hemostasis Clips for Gastroenterologists


Cook Endoscopy is recalling its Disposable Hemostasis Clip, DCH-7-230, according to a Total Recall report.
The company warned that the disposable clip may not deploy after being positioned inside the patient.
The device is used for endoscopic marking, hemostasis for mucosal sub-mucosal defects less than 3cm in the upper GI tract, bleeding ulcers, arteries less than 2 mm wide and polyps less than 1.5 cm in diameter in the GI tract.

Baxter Announces FDA Approval of ARTISS Fibrin Sealant for Use in Face-Lift (Facial Rhytidectomy) Procedures

DEERFIELD, Ill., Aug 31, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Baxter International Inc. announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has expanded the indication of ARTISS [Fibrin Sealant (Human)] to include adhering tissue flaps during facial rhytidectomy surgery (face-lift). ARTISS is the only premixed, ready-to-use fibrin sealant specifically indicated for tissue adherence in facial rhytidectomy (face-lift) and burn surgeries. It was first approved by the FDA in 2008 to adhere autologous skin grafts to surgically prepared wound beds resulting from burns in adult and pediatric populations one year of age or older.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Baxter Acquires Ostene


August 17, 2011
Ceremed, Inc. (Los Angeles) announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Ostene® brand bone hemostasis product line to Baxter International Inc. The agreement provides for Baxter to acquire all rights to the Ostene® brand, including manufacturing.
Founded in 2002, Ceremed is a privately held medical device company focusing on the design and development of medical materials, utilizing their proprietary AOC PolymerBlend™ technology. Ceremed has successfully commercialized applications ranging from coatings and carriers to bone hemostasis. Based on the proven safety, efficacy and versatility of the AOC PolymerBlend™ technology, Ceremed looks forward to the continued development and innovation of products that meet the needs of today’s surgeons.
“We are very pleased that Baxter has agreed to acquire the Ostene® brand.” said Tadeusz Wellisz, M.D., chairman of Ceremed.
With the divestiture of both the marketing and manufacturing of Ostene®, Ceremed will free up assets needed to focus on bringing new products to market that will meet the demands of patients and device manufacturers alike. “This is a great opportunity for Ceremed to take the next step to becoming a major player in the biomaterials market,” noted Bill Lamm, president of Ceremed.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

EDQM Launches New Web Page On Blood Transfusion Projects

The European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM) has launched a new web page highlighting its various projects in the area of blood transfusion. The page covers the growing number of important activities in this field.
The web page is designed to be a centralised forum to share information about ongoing projects. It includes details of the progress of each project, press releases, news updates on new or planned projects, relevant resolutions, the terms of reference of the different project groups, as well as links to other organisations working in this area. In addition, it lists the European Committee on Blood Transfusion (CD-P-TS) members.
Importantly, the new web page also serves as an information portal for 'Project TS057: Risk Behaviours having an impact on Blood Donor Management and Transfusion Safety'. Exclusion criteria for blood donors, especially with regard to sexual behaviours, are much debated. The present situation, involving the permanent exclusion of individuals whose behaviour places them at higher risks of acquiring severe infectious diseases that are transmissible by blood transfusion, is being questioned by citizens and by the press in terms of whether this kind of donor deferral is legal, right, appropriate, efficient and required.
Despite the testing of blood donations with highly sensitive test systems, there remains a residual risk of transfusion-transmitted infection due to donations given in the 'window' period, i.e. the time period between initial infection and its detection. This is not always recognised by the public.
As a consequence, the CD-P-TS of the EDQM, Council of Europe has appointed a working group (TS057) to monitor current practices, evaluate the scientific data and define a harmonised approach to establishing rules for donor deferral, linked to the risks attributable to sexual behaviour. The group started its work in February 2010 and will finish during autumn 2011.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Patients who undergo bowel surgery face a postcode lottery of care, research suggests.

In some parts of the country, those who are operated on at much higher risk of needing further treatment to stop bleeding or correct complications.
Academics found a fivefold difference in reoperation rates in NHS hospitals for planned bowel surgery.
It comes after a landmark study showed that bowel cancer sufferers in some parts of the country after almost 10 times as likely to die after surgery for the disease.
Researchers at Imperial College London conclude, in a paper published online at Bmj.com, that figures for the number of repeat operations could be used to compare quality alongside death rates for a range of types of surgery.
They write: “This study supports the feasibility of using reoperation rate as a quality indicator derived from routinely collected data.
“If data accuracy can be assured, this methodology may permit national performance assessment using reoperation alongside other indicators such as mortality and will be easily transferable across a range of surgical specialties.
“Initiatives to improve surgical performance should be focused on reducing inexplicable observed variation in reoperation after major resectional colorectal surgery.”
The team used Hospital Episode Statistics to look at the experiences of 246,469 patients in 175 English hospitals who underwent colorectal surgery between 2000 and 2008.
They found that in total, 15,986 needed further surgery (6.5 per cent of the total) within 28 days of the original operation, mainly to stop “postoperative bleeding” or a breakage that leads to the leak of gastric or intestinal fluid.
Emergency patients and men were slightly more likely to need extra procedures, as were those who had inflammatory bowel disease.
But the researchers also found “considerable variation” between individual surgeons and NHS trusts in their reoperation rates.
Some hospitals reported no reoperations but others had rates of 17 per cent.
The reoperation rate was five times as high for planned surgery in the highest-performing hospitals compared with the lowest (14.9 per cent compared with 2.8 per cent), among those that performed more than 500 procedures.
In a comment piece, Arden Morris, Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Michigan, says that measuring quality is only the first step in the more important goal of improving quality.
She warns that forcing hospitals to publish their reoperation rates will not necessarily help, and that proposals to improve patient care are also needed.
“Policy interventions that do not deal with underlying mechanisms are not likely to improve outcomes. Instead, they may perversely contribute to tension between quality measurement and quality improvement.
“For example, a call for mandatory reporting of reoperation rates is unlikely to result in a change in surgical technique but could increase rote paperwork and even cynicism among providers.”

Sunday, August 14, 2011

GM plant proteins can hugely reduce the cost of new drugs, says professor who has got go-ahead to test HIV antibody on humans


Julian Ma is joint head of the infection and immunity research centre at St George's Hospital Medical School in London. He specialises in genetically modifying plants to produce useful drugs, a process called pharming, which he hopes will bring cheaper drugs to the developing world. His Pharma-Planta project was recently given permission by the UK medical regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, to carry out human trials of a monoclonal antibody, grown in tobacco plants, that can be used to prevent HIV infection.
How is a regular drug made?
The class of drugs we're dealing with are called recombinant proteins. What that means is a kind of protein that is made in a system that is not the host system for that original protein. Recombinant proteins have been made for decades using GM technologies – it started with GM bacterium E coli, which was used to make human insulin. Then we moved to GM yeast (an example of that is the vaccine against hepatitis B). More recently, the gold standard for making recombinant proteins, particularly monoclonal antibodies (Herceptin is a good example), is to use mammalian cells. The most commonly used one is a cell derived from the ovaries of a Chinese hamster (CHO). Those cells are grown in big fermenters as a liquid culture.
Why would using plant cells be better than these traditional methods?
These fermentation vats have to be kept absolutely sterile and the manufacturing facilities that are involved are very expensive. The thinking behind going to whole plants was: here we have a very simple and efficient protein-manufacturing system that simply uses sunlight, water and soil to make proteins. It's no coincidence that plants are at the bottom of the food chain, because it's the cheapest and most economical way of making proteins on a large scale.
How pure is the protein that comes out of your experimental plants?
There are many potential variables. The conditions under which you grow the plant inherently has some variability; daylight affects it, and there's variability of the environment around the greenhouse. And you've got soil in your greenhouse, the growth medium. What we've shown in our work is that, despite all the variations, what comes out of the plant can be made to very high quality; in fact, the quality we reached was even higher than had been previously achieved using the CHO system.
Can you use any plant for pharming?
There are some other species, such as maize, which would work very well – any plant that produces a seed would be a good target for us, because seeds are essentially dehydrated protein-storage bodies. We've chosen tobacco for several reasons: the most important is that it's not part of the food chain, and we were acutely aware that we needed to find a species that would not give us environmental issues about whether we might pass our product into the food chain. Tobacco is a major crop around the world, so, if you're looking at non-food crops, tobacco is the best-established one. And third, it produces a huge amount of biomass – if you want to create a very large-scale production system, biomass levels are important.
Where will this go in future?
One of the great areas for potential growth of plants is in making not just very complex molecules but also combinations of complex molecules, like antibodies. The product we're working on, the anti-HIV antibody, eventually will have to be used in combination with one or two antibodies: it's very unlikely it will be used by itself. The reason for that is that HIV is very good at mutating, so you need to provide two or three antibodies to prevent viral escape. That concept is applicable across the board for infectious diseases. Plants give you the option of making many molecules to add to a cocktail of pharmaceuticals, because the potential cost of making the molecules is much lower than conventional systems. You can now afford to make cocktails of two to three antibodies, whereas, up until now, we haven't been able to afford that.
Could you one day eat plants to extract the drugs, instead of processing them?
This suggestion has been around for quite a long time now and it is attractive, but there are some difficulties with that. The early suggestions of growing banana trees or tomato plants and having fresh produce as a delivery tool have been discarded, mainly because you can't control the dosage of your medicine very easily. That doesn't mean you can't take that sort of system and combine it with some simple food-processing technology. If you were able to produce a medicine in an edible fruit, like a tomato, you could do a simple food-processing step to stabilise the protein in the tomato product and also standardise the dose. That could be delivered by the oral route.
Delivering vaccines by the oral route has been the holy grail of vaccinologists for decades. There are some technical difficulties with it: some people don't respond well to oral vaccines and there are some immunological issues. But the potential is there. I think that is some way off, however, and what we've done at this stage – shown that plants are a viable manufacturing system for vaccines or antibodies – is the first step along a very long road that will ultimately lead to an edible vaccine. In the interim, this will give us many other valuable products which look much more like conventional pharmaceuticals.
Will your technique make drugs cheaper?
The real cost of pharmaceuticals is not down to the cost of the goods themselves, it's due to the many years it takes to develop a drug, and many other steps. Where I think the cost benefit does come in, though, is in the very early stages of drug development. In a plant system, the investment you have to make early on to test a new drug is much lower than if you wanted to make it by conventional systems. That could be 10- to 100-fold cheaper. We know that many drugs fail in the first few years of development, but if the cost of trialling each of those drugs is very high, very few people are able to enter the field. If you make the cost of entry into looking at new drugs much lower, using plant technologies, it allows you to bring underdeveloped countries in to look at drugs that they might find very important.