Biospleen Helps Clean Blood to Prevent Sepsis
When a patient has sepsis, things can go downhill fast. A life-threatening condition in which bacteria or fungi multiply in a patient’s blood — sepsis is often too fast for antibiotics to help. But that’s all about to change with the introduction of a new device — inspired by the human spleen — that may radically transform the way doctors treat sepsis.
“Even with the best current treatments, sepsis patients are dying in intensive care units at least 30 percent of the time,” said Mike Super, Ph.D. “We need a new approach.”
To put things into perspective sepsis kills at least eight million people worldwide each year and it’s the leading cause of hospital deaths.
The Spleen-on-a-chip, developed at the Wyss Institute, will be used to treat bloodstream infections that are the leading cause of death in critically ill patients and soldiers injured in combat. Image credit goes to: Wyss Institute
