The Netflix original "Trauma Center," released on the 24th, is gaining attention. It depicts the story of a trauma team led by surgeon Baek Kang-hyuk (Joo Ji-hoon) struggling to save patients. The golden time for severe trauma patients is only 60 minutes, so the doctors in the drama rush to save the patients.
If the golden time for severe trauma patients can be extended, their survival rate will naturally increase. The U.S. military is taking on what seems impossible.
The U.S. military operates in over 130 countries around the world, responsible for combat and maintaining public safety in various environments from urban areas to deserts and mountains. However, it is not easy to equip deployment locations with all the medical infrastructure needed for soldiers who frequently get injured. Especially, it is difficult to treat severe trauma patients with injuries such as gunshot wounds or amputations in a timely manner on-site. This is why the U.S. military is conducting research to extend the golden time for severe trauma patients.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been operating the "GOLDEVAC" program since last year, seeking ways to extend the golden time for severe trauma patients to 48 hours. The goal is to create a portable emergency device to improve the survival rate of patients in the military, where severe trauma cases frequently occur.
Golden time refers to the time required to treat a patient's illness or injury. If a patient does not receive appropriate treatment within the golden time, the chance of recovering health becomes significantly lower, and in severe cases, the risk of death increases dramatically. The medical community considers the golden time for severe trauma patients to be about 1 hour. For strokes, it is 3 hours, and for heart attacks, approximately 5 minutes; thus, the golden time varies depending on the patient's condition.
The reason the golden time for severe trauma patients is 1 hour is due to various factors, including excessive inflammatory responses and severe bleeding. The primary reason is that the supply of oxygen is interrupted, leading to organ damage. In particular, brain damage begins if the supply of oxygen is blocked for just 4 to 6 minutes.
The GOLDEVAC program aims to develop a technology that supplies oxygen to the trauma site by inserting a catheter. If this research is successful, it could significantly increase the survival rate of soldiers who do not receive timely medical care with relatively simple treatments. DARPA aims to extend the golden time for severe trauma patients to 48 hours.
Devices that supply oxygen to trauma patients already exist, but they require expert oversight due to side effects such as blood clotting. This research aims to minimize side effects and incorporate features to directly measure the patient's condition, allowing effective patient management even when medical infrastructure is lacking.
Adam Willis, the DARPA program manager who initiated this research, noted, "The U.S. military has the best medical access among militaries worldwide, but future battlefields may lack medical infrastructure. This research aims to bridge the medical gap on the battlefield and aid injured soldiers in safely evacuating."
This is not the first time the U.S. military has researched the golden time for trauma patients. In 2018, the Biostasis program was announced, starting research on technologies that slow down cellular metabolism to minimize organ damage. The strategy is to use techniques that adjust the metabolism of organisms in extreme environments to improve survival rates for patients. For example, it may involve freezing patients or using catalysts to regulate cellular activity, similar to how the "wood frog" survives being frozen and thawed.
Since the technology being developed by the U.S. military is for military use, it is unlikely to be applied immediately to general hospitals or patients even after the development is complete. In fact, DARPA has only informed that research on Biostasis is ongoing, without disclosing specific outcomes. However, as DARPA's other technologies are revealed to the public over time, it seems that technologies for severe trauma patients may eventually be accessible to the general public.
DARPA emphasized that "the technology developed through the GOLDEVAC program will be used in the military while also being commercialized."