Figure 1
The failure of clots correlated with decreased survival time and increased blood loss in rats subjected to femoral artery incision followed by intravenous fluids to maintain blood pressure. (a) Schematic of rat injury. The femoral artery (dark red) was exposed and incised 3 mm longitudinally to induce bleeding. Blood was allowed to pool in the wound pocket (pink). (b) Timeline for the rat surgery performed. Before injury, blood was drawn from a catheter in the carotid artery to normalize mean arterial pressure (MAP) to approximately 50 mmHg. After the injury, treatment was immediately added into the wound pocket. Free bleeding occurred for 5 min before fluid resuscitation was initiated. (c,d) Schematic (c) and photographs (d) of rebleeds from hematomas above an incised rat femoral artery. Both cohesive failure (left images) and adhesive failure (right images) occurred. White arrows indicate locations of clot failure and rebleeding. (e,f) The frequency of rebleeding in each untreated control animal is correlated with shorter survival time (e, R = − 0.89, p = 0.0030), and greater blood loss (f, R = 0.81, p = 0.014).
