CINCINNATI (WKRC) – Over Memorial Day weekend, as Americans remember those killed in battle, a new technology is in the works that could help veterans get proper treatment earlier than ever before.
It’s part of a new portable system called “NeuSTAT,” which could detect brain injuries, as timing is critical for proper treatment. The FDA has just approved the next steps in a clinical trial to show how well it works.
It’s designed to help medical personnel diagnose everything from a traumatic brain injury in battle to a stroke.
The portable headset device identifies what’s happening inside the brain and sends that information to a phone or other screen device on site.
“NeuSTAT is a device which will detect blood and for the trial, it’ll be approved to detect blood for someone who may have had a hemorrhagic stroke or bleeding from a traumatic brain injury,” said Geoff Klass, CEO of Sense Neuro Diagnostics. “Worldwide, there’s 50 billion traumatic brain injuries each year, and if you have a traumatic brain injury or if you have a stroke, immediate care is important.”
The device works by passing radiofrequency through the brain. That allows medics to distinguish normal tissue from tissue that bleeds.
A single scan of our device of the entire cranial vault takes two-and-a-half seconds, and in that two-and-a-half seconds, we have gathered 360 data points of the entire brain,” Klass said. “When a war-fighter is injured, you put this device on their head, and it will tell us [through] an LED system, very simple. If we get a green light, the brain is okay. If we get a red light, it tells us blood is present. If the red light is flashing, it tells us the blood is present, but it’s expanding, so the bleed is increasing.
NeuSTAT monitors the brain from onset to evacuation and arrival at a field hospital.
The technology is considered cost-effective as the headset is used once and costs a few hundred dollars. There’s a one-time fee of a few thousand dollars for the software to which it connects.
The company expects results from the initial trial by the end of the year.