According to a recent study, Japanese scientists have successfully used nanoparticles to stop bleeding in laboratory animals.
During traumatic injuries, blood vessels are damaged and this results in bleeding. During this time platelets, get activated and stop the bleeding. This is followed by a clot formation.A team of scientists from the National Defense Medical College in Japan have successfully injected platelet-activating substances into liposomes. They, then, attached different substances, that were about 200 nanometers, to the liposome surface to help them to stick to the platelets.
During the experiment, the livers of the laboratory rabbits were traumatized. All the injured animals died, except for the 10 rabbits that were injected with 20 mg of the nanoparticles per kilogram of their body weight.
One nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. Nanoparticles are particles with just one dimension, in other words they are 100 nanometers or less in size. The success of nanoparticles is due to their greater surface area per weight in comparison to larger particles and this enables them to be more reactive to other molecules.
Nanoparticles are frequently used in cancer therapy , where they are used to directly deliver drugs to cancer cells. These high –benefit particles may be preserved for half a year unlike platelets, which can only be preserved for a week. Besides, nanoparticles can be mass produced too.
The new treatment is believed to be useful to those who are victims of traumatic bleeding caused by serious injuries. But it would take a while for the practice to be kick-started, as clinical tests are required to be carried out to deem it viable for humans.