Bionic Blood

It may soon flow here

It is all too familiar to doctors. The patient desperately needs blood for an operation but is a member of Jehovah's Witnesses, a group with religious beliefs that forbid blood transfusions. Often physicians must stand idly by while such a patient dies. But now, in one case at the University of Minnesota Hospital in Minneapolis, doctors have resolved this dilemma. The solution: a transfusion using artificial blood, the first time it has been attempted in the U.S.

In October a 67-year-old Jehovah's Witness had undergone surgery without blood transfusion. Discharged from the hospital, he soon developed severe anemia and was readmitted. A transfusion was urgently needed, so his doctors decided on a novel approach. They asked the FDA for permission to try an experimental blood substitute called Fluosol.

A fluorocarbon mixture, Fluosol can dissolve and carry vast amounts of oxygen, thus doing the work of blood while giving the body a chance to replenish its own supply. The Fluosol is gradually excreted; after 65 days, half of it is gone. Developed in Japan at Kobe University and the Green Cross pharmaceutical company, it is now being tested there in human patients. If artificial blood is eventually approved for general use, it will be a boon not only to Jehovah's Witnesses, but in any case where blood is not easily obtainable, or when there is no time to match blood types--on the battlefield, for example, or at the scene of accidents.

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