Injecting Oxygen Directly into the Bloodstream Could Save Suffocating Patients
Oxygenating Blood With Microparticles Researchers have developed microparticles packed with oxygen that can be injected into the bloodstream in cases where the lungs cannot properly oxygenate the blood, buying medical personnel as much as an extra half hour before the patient suffers the effects of oxygen deprivation. Courtesy Children's Hospital Boston When a person stops breathing--be it from an obstruction in the airway or something like acute lung failure--the clock is decidedly ticking. Deprived of oxygen for long enough, a person can go into cardiac arrest. Brain damage sets in. Without oxygen, things go south pretty quickly. So a team of researchers at Boston Children's hospital has designed a kind of injectable oxygen that can be quickly introduced to a person's bloodstream to oxygenate the blood, buying paramedics or other medical personnel perhaps as much as half an hour to remedy an oxygen flow problem. The microparticle solution is different than blood...