Opinions on clotting agents

[LIPPER]

Looking for a recommended agent ie Celox. Opinions of most cost effective/reliable agent

[medic25]

Friends I've spoken with in the military seem to prefer QuikClot; they did comparisons in the animal lab and QuikClot was the most effective. That's what I carry in my bag.

[Will352ns]

I've used the old school granule style quickclot and it was bar-none the best IMO. Unfortunately, it was removed from the market. Burned like hel! as well.

 

I used combat gauze a couple of times with questionable success. I say questionable because you have to keep in mind that these agents are not silver bullets. You still have to hold a ton of pressure on a very well packed wound (5 mins recommended). I have packed wounds with regular gauze (cling/roll-up) and I have had similar results. Open it, stuff it, press it = bleeding stops with or without a hemostatic agent. I think the difference may be in how the wound remains in stasis during movement...the agents may have the advantage....I don't know. This is all anecdotal.

 

I have used other brands in training to include Celox. I believe the results are pretty much the same.

 

Soo...long story short...I would go with either Combat Gauze (made by Quickclot) or Celox. Why these? They seem to have the most data behind them...they seem safe and appear to do as advertized....how well is up to the opinion of the user.

 

Hope that helps.

[Just Steve]

One of the key messages i took home from speaking with recent combat medics were that the hemostatic agents were key in helping maintain that hemostasis. Achieving that state is one thing...as Will noted, you can typically get the same result without the additional chemical. However, these guys were taking fire, ducking behind cover, applying chemical supplemented gauze, bulky dressing, TQ if wound allows, then wrapping their wounded up in a tarp and making like scalded rabbits down the road in 200-400 feet increments, hoping that the wound didn't open back up. The chemical added that layer of additional security. In the ER where hands are plenty and no one is actively shooting (hopefully), I am not sure how useful it is over traditional methods. The benefit for not using those agents go to the surgeons when they get to muck around a relatively clean wound vs sorting through the chemical.

[jwells78]

I am the medical officer for an infantry battalion, just got back for the box with a combat engineer Bn (read: IED finders). When I went through the tcmc/ train up, they were not pushing these anymore. We had some combat gauze in theater, but rarely used it over good old fashioned CATs, kerlix, and pressure.

 

I've used chitosan dsgs, combat gauze, quickclot - all seemed ok, maybe the combat gauze was better because you can pack it into a large wound, which is typically what we had on our hands anyway.

 

True that about the quickclot though- it does burn like hel! !

 

j