Surgeons Use Beeswax to Stop Bones from Bleeding

New FDA-Approved Treatment for Bone Bleeding Offers Alternative to Civil War-Era Remedy
PRWeb, 7/7/2006

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) July 7, 2006 -- Almost 150 years after the battle of Gettysburg, surgeons still stop bones from bleeding the same way Civil War field doctors did in 1863 – using beeswax. That’s about to change.

A study just published in The Journal of Craniofacial Surgery shows a new synthetic copolymer called OsteneTM stops bone bleeding instantaneously, but unlike beeswax, it does so without interfering with bone healing or causing inflammation of the surrounding soft tissue.

Chemists from the University of Southern California have developed water-soluble OsteneTM as a long-overdue alternative to the old battlefield remedy. They teamed up with Dr. Tad Wellisz, a USC clinical professor of surgery with experience in developing and marketing medical products, and gained approval for OsteneTM from the Food and Drug Administration in 2005. Now OsteneTM, manufactured by Los Angeles-based Ceremed, Inc., can be used in U.S. operating rooms.

It’s high time. Beeswax, better known as bone wax, increases the risk of infection and causes allergic reactions, chronic inflammation, swelling and debilitating pain…