A phase III multi-center trial was the first to compare the safety and effectiveness of substitute blood and across 46 sites in the United States, Europe and South Africa the bovine sourced, hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier called HBOC-21 did the trick.

“The majority of patients who received the blood substitute did well,” said Dr. Jonathan Jahr, the study’s lead author and professor of clinical anesthesiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Patients could take up to 10 units of blood substitute during a 6-day period. After 6 weeks, it was found that in 59 percent of the people given the blood substitute there was no need for blood transfusions.

At the moment the substitute blood is proving relatively safe for people younger than 80 who have a moderate need for transfusion of up to 3 units of regular blood. Mortality rates for those in the moderate use group were 1 percent and for those in a higher need group it was 5 percent. In the regular blood group, the rate was 3 percent. Researchers say those statistics are comparable.

Some less serious side effects were caused by temporary expected physiologic effects of this class of drugs which can include skin discoloration, elevation of blood pressure and a rise in levels in the enzymes and lipase. None of these effects led to clinical problems but Jahr would like to see them studied in future trials.

Study author, Colin F. Kennedy, of the National Study Center for Trauma & EMS at the University of Maryland School of Medicine said, “This product has a definite place where blood is not an option, such as in patients whose immune system attacks red blood cells or those whose religion forbids blood transfusions and in situations where blood is not available.”

The next stage of research will take place in military and trauma situations as well as additional studies in anemia and ischemia.

SOURCE: Journal of Trauma, June 2008
.ivanhoe.com