Medical Term of the Day: Scabs and Synthetic Platelets

Hooray for scabs!

Platelets, or Thrombocytes, are the small, non-nuclear cells in your blood that are one of the main factors that cause clotting. When you cut yourself deep enough to cause bleeding, a mechanism is activated in which platelets are sent to the site of the wound and begin to build up. They are irregularly shaped, so they catch onto each other and the other components of your blood to basically form a dam. As the site is exposed, the dam dries up and becomes our good friend the Scab.

Scabs are a very important part of the healing process. A scab is like a bandaid that is made directly from your body! They are great protection against infection, and as they cover the wound site, they allow for the regeneration of cells that will replace the tissue that was lost in the initial damaging of the area.
(photo courtesy of photobucket)

New research is being done on synthetic platelets. Scientists are working on a powder that can be administered intravenously to a patient with severe bleeding to speed up the clotting process. This is great, because some people have blood-clotting conditions called Thrombophilias in which their body has a hard time producing clots. This can be due to lack of platelets or inefficient mechanisms of the blood.

This research will be especially helpful for trauma that causes internal bleeding. As it stands, internal bleeding is a big problem for doctors because you have to physically get to the site to stop the bleeding, which means, in some cases, opening the patient up and having to clamp the blood vessels closed. BUT, if the bleeding is somewhere critical, such as the BRAIN, the patient is S.O.L. (wear a helmet everywhere!)

If surgeons could simply give the patient an IV drip of clotting agent, then there would be more time to find the injury and take care of it.