Evaluation of FloSeal as a potential intracavitary hemostatic agent.

Background: Noncompressible hemorrhage is a major cause of death in combat and civilian trauma. When surgery is unavailable, one potential solution to such hemorrhage might be the introduction of an agent into the closed body cavity to provide hemostasis via a combination of coagulative and tamponade effects. FloSeal is an agent containing collagen and thrombin with proven hemostatic efficacy when applied with manual pressure to a bleeding site. The current studies were conducted to analyze the ability of FloSeal to reduce blood loss and increase survival time when applied directly, immediately, and without additional pressure to a severe liver injury in rats.

Methods: Male rats were anesthetized and catheters were placed in the carotid artery (for measurement of blood pressure) and jugular vein (for resuscitation with lactated Ringers, 3.3 mL/min/kg BW). After midventral laparotomy, the liver was exposed and caudal portions of both medial lobes ( approximately 1% of body weight) were rapidly excised. FloSeal (5 mL, 800 units Thrombin/mL) or vehicle (5 mL, 0.9% NaCl) was directly and immediately applied to the cut liver surface. The abdominal cavity was closed and resuscitation initiated. After hemorrhage-induced death, or after euthanasia at 90 minutes, fluid loss (blood + resuscitation fluid) was measured.

Results: Compared with the control group, direct and immediate application of FloSeal was associated with a reduction in the amounts of fluid lost into the abdominal cavity (p < 0.01) (19.2 +/- 1.5 versus 25.1 +/- 1.5 g) and enhanced mean arterial pressure at 5, 20, and 30 minutes after injury (p = 0.02), but neither survival time (p = 0.12) nor percent survival (p = 0.17) differed between treated and control groups.

Conclusions: Reductions in fluid loss after liver injury and hemorrhage in FloSeal-treated rats in the absence of additional applied pressure are encouraging, and provide evidence for the ability of FloSeal to reduce blood loss when applied immediately and directly to a bleeding tissue.