AC5 Surgical Hemostat™ as an effective hemostatic agent in an anticoagulated rat liver punch biopsy model.

Intra-operative and postoperative bleeding is a major concern in surgical procedures for patients taking anticoagulant medications, or where anticoagulants are used to prevent potential life-threatening embolic complications. Heparin is the anticoagulant used most frequently and has an immediate effect on blood clotting, lasting 4 to 6h. Although synthetic self-assembling peptides have been shown to achieve rapid hemostasis in small animals, none have adequately addressed the potential for hemostasis in the presence of anticoagulant therapy in-vivo. Our goal was to investigate the hemostatic activity of a known synthetic self-assembling peptide in animals treated and untreated with heparin anticoagulation therapy. Using a rat liver puncture model, animals were treated with known synthetic peptide AC5 Surgical Hemostatic Device™, or saline controls. Time-to-hemostasis and coagulation times were recorded in both heparinized and non-heparinized animals. Here we show that AC5™ was able to achieve rapid hemostasis equivalently in both heparinized and non-heparinized animals. FROM THE CLINICAL EDITOR:Intra-operative and postoperative bleeding is a major concern in surgical procedures for patients taking anticoagulant medications. In this work the effective hemostasis was demonstrated both in heparinized and non-heparinized animals using self-assembling peptides.