Daniel Garrett discusses the progress achieved over 80 years of development in haemostat solutions. He provides an in-depth review of oxidised cellulose and gelatin sponge haemostats.
An absorbable haemostatic agent, commonly referred to as a haemostat, is a material designed to generate haemostasis, which is the process of stopping unwanted bleeding during surgery by creating a blood clot in damaged vessels. The absorbable haemostat can be left in the body after surgery and is then absorbed in the tissues, leaving no trace behind.1
One of the first documented uses of a haemostat was in 1879 by Halsted who suggested he had observed a form of cellulose being used to stop haemorrhage in papillary cysts of the thyroid.2 The first official use of an absorbable haemostat has been credited to Cushing, a Neurosurgeon who in 1911 suggested that fibrin from whipped blood could be plastered on bleeding surfaces to create haemostasis.3
During the Second World War, the requirement for surgery and the need to prevent unwanted bleeding significantly increased and therefore research into haemostats progressed rapidly with Frantz (1943) introducing the use of oxidised cellulose as a haemostatic material that could gradually dissolve.4 Shortly after, Correll & Wise (1945) introduced the gelatin sponge which was originally used as a carrying media for thrombin, aiding the clotting process.4
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