Medicine: Blood Foam and Film

To the 1,200-odd medical magazines now in existence, a new one was added last week: the Journal of Neurosurgery. It brought news of two new medical materials, fibrin foam and fibrin film. They are made from human blood. For six months, Drs. Franc Douglas Ingraham and Orville Taylor Bailey of Boston have used them to stanch oozing blood and replace lost tissue in brain operations.

Gist of the doctors’ enthusiastic report:

Fibrin Foam is made of blood fibrinogen. It has a spongy consistency. Soaked before using in a solution of thrombin, it becomes fibrin, the framework of blood clots. The foam quickly and permanently stops oozing from small blood vessels and large veins, which no other material has ever been able to do. The surgeons sometimes leave some foam inside when a wound is closed. They found that the foam is rapidly absorbed.

Fibrin Film, also made of fibrinogen, is used to replace lost dura, the coating of the brain. It disappears in a few months, is completely replaced by a living membrane of approximately its own thickness.