FRIDAY, Sept. 27, 2002 (HealthDayNews) -- A "smart" catheter gives doctors information about the amount of oxygen that trauma and critical care patients' organs are receiving.
So says a report presented today at the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma's annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.
When a person suffers hemorrhagic shock, massive blood loss reduces the amount of oxygen delivered to all the organs in the body, which can lead to organ damage. Current methods to monitor oxygen supply to the organs are often invasive and can't always be used in a clinical setting.
University of Pittsburgh researchers and an Israeli physiology professor teamed up to develop the new "smart" catheter -- a modified urinary catheter with a fluorescent fiber optic probe that measures blood flow and oxygen utilization.
The fiber optic probe in this catheter is the same type used by neurosurgeons and anesthesiologists to measure oxygen utilization in the brain.
Animal studies and preliminary findings of the catheter's use in two people indicate the catheter is less invasive than current techniques used to monitor oxygen supply to organs.
"We hope by using technology such as this we can begin to learn more about the mechanisms of trauma and associated organ failure, so we can begin to formulate better outcomes for these patients," says study senior author Dr. Juan Carlos Puyana, an associate professor or surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
More information
There's first-aid information about preventing shock in injury victims at the National Ag Safety Database.
