US Military joins forces with AITHM researcher Dr Geoffrey Dobson
The US military is supporting work by a team at AITHM in Townsville led by Dr Geoffrey Dobson who has recently returned from Fort Lauderdale’s Military Health System Research Symposium with an award for his work in trauma medicine and acute care surgery.
Dr Dobson’s research team has previously found that in small doses adenosine, lidocaine and magnesium (ALM) acts like a ‘kick-start’ to rescue and stabilise the heart following massive blood loss. In larger doses it induces "suspended animation", slowing the heart and other organs to buy the time needed to get patients into surgery.
The research team are investigating mechanisms of early trauma-induced coagulopathy, which can increase mortality fourfold in trauma patients.
Recently, Dr Dobson, research associate Hayley Letson and PhD student Maddison Griffin have turned their attention to the global need for new drug therapies to reduce the patient’s response against the trauma of surgery before the first incision.
The current project is to work with the US military as Co-Investigators with trauma surgeons to improve a patient’s chance of survival following a catastrophic injury.
“We’re looking at new resuscitation paradigms pre hospital and reviewing new drug therapies to reduce the patient’s response against the trauma of surgery before the first incision as well as the mechanisms behind blood loss in surgery and how this can be prevented or improved,” said Dr Dobson.