Photochemical Tissue Bonding for Military Medical Applications

Joining severed vessels is a recurring problem in trauma and surgery. The basic technology that uses suture has been available for a long time. Many technologies have been introduced to make vessel suturing water-tight. Any solution to this problem must integrate well with standard medical care. This means that the solution must be safe, effective, acceptable to surgeons, and technologically feasible. We propose a novel two-wavelength laser that allows precise and rapid closure of anastomosis of vessels. An exogenous glue, composed of FDA-approved human serum albumin will be used to increase bond strength and burst pressures. A dissolvable stent, also composed of human serum albumin, will be used to facilitate joining larger vessels and aligning the vessel edges. Laser bonding has not gained widespread clinical acceptance because (1) an exogenous chromophore (indocyanine green) was required, (2) no economical laser sources, (3) large laser beam sizes (4) no internal support for the vessel during anastomosis was available. Advances in laser technology at nLight Corp remove issues (2) and (3). The protocol proposed would eliminate issues (1) and (4) - albumin replaces indocyanine green, and internal support is provided by a solid albumin stent, which dissolves once blood is allowed to flow again.