Just breathe. Am injected microparticle (yellow) may deliver oxygen molecules in red blood cells (red) to transport the body.
D. Kunkel / Dennis Kunkel Microscopy, Inc., D. Bell / Harvard University, Hospital J. Kheir / BostonChildren, C. Porter / Chris Porter Illustration
John Kheir knows what it is to lose a race against time with oxygen. In October 06, the pediatric intensive care physician treated a girl of 9 months, admitted to the Boston Children's Hospital with viral pneumonia. As his illness worsened, his hemorrhaged lungs filling with blood and stop breathing. Kheir jumped into action, pushing a breathing tube down his windpipe to help get air to the lungs, CPR, and eventually put the baby on a machine that has taken to its heart and lungs. But within minutes it took to restore the flow of air into the body of the girl, her brain had already suffered permanent damage due to lack of oxygen. She died a few days later.
Devastated, Kheir began looking for the best ways to get oxygen into the body. Now he has found one. In a new study, published online today in Science Translational Medicine , he and his colleagues report the development of microparticles filled with oxygen gas that can be injected directly into the blood. The particles rapidly dissolve, releasing the gas and maintenance of organs such as the brain, suffocating.
"This is a potential breakthrough," says cardiac intensive care doctor Peter Laussen of Children's Hospital Boston, who has not participated. "You can apply this through care health of the battlefield to the emergency room, intensive care unit or operating room. "
the microparticles are tiny bubbles whose surfaces are membranes already used clinically to deliver drugs chemotherapy and ultrasonic colorants. But while these microparticles release their contents slowly Kheir and colleagues designed particles containing oxygen which dissolve as soon as they hit the bloodstream. they then tested the microparticles in respiratory rabbits low-oxygen air. within seconds of receiving the microbubbles, oxygen levels in the blood of rabbits rose to a dangerously low level of 70% to almost 100% saturation, the ideal level .
"Basically, as soon as we started to inject clinically we started to see an effect," Khair said. But if the injection is stopped, the levels have dropped just as quickly, he said, indicating the need for the microparticles to be administered continuously.
Kheir said the treatment could have saved the brain of his patient of pneumonia, or the lives of countless other patients whose organs have failed to oxygen deprivation. If it works in larger animal tests that are currently in progress and moves to human clinical trials, the therapy could eventually be used on anyone with a lung infection, asthma, or blocked airways. it could even be an addition to CPR, Laussen added. "this is still in its infancy," he says, "but the idea of a new and innovative way to efficiently deliver oxygen is, I think, very exciting. "
for now, the microparticles are washed so fluid, especially in young or small-volume patients is a limiting factor in how long people could receive the infusion. The maximum current is about 15 to 30 minutes, says Kheir. "If we could increase the ratio of microparticles to fluid, we may be able to use for even longer and even more indications."
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