St. Teresa Medical Announces First Commercial Use of SURGICLOT® in Auckland, New Zealand

EAGAN, Minn., Sept. 7, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, St. Teresa Medical, Inc^® and Orb Orthopedics Ltd. in Auckland New Zealand, which is St. Teresa Medical's exclusive distributor, announced the first commercial use of its novel hemostatic fibrin-based surgical dressing – SURGICLOT^®. Dr. John Ferguson, an internationally renowned spine surgeon from Auckland, New Zealand was the first surgeon to use SURGICLOT^® commercially. Dr. Ferguson was performing an elective two-level posterior lumbar spine fusion on a patient at Ascot Hospital in Auckland. Upon completion of the surgery, Dr. Ferguson made the following observations on SURGICLOT^® and its successful clinical usage in this procedure.

Product performance
After his first application on bleeding cancellous bone, Dr. Ferguson was asked how he would characterize the bleeding, he said, "There is none.  It's pretty darned dry, really." As the surgery continued, he said, "It is amazing how quickly SURGICLOT^® is disappearing on contact with the blood.  You can see it disappearing right before your eyes." Later he was asked about whether the dextran nanofiber carrier dissolved, he said, "Yes, it's gone. It's completely gone."

While closing the surgery site, he said, "There is no blood coming out of the wound. Normally, the blood is welling at this point.  But, with SURGICLOT^® there is nothing coming out of the wound at all.  Sometimes in these surgeries I will need to put a drain in the wound. Today, I don't need one."

Visualization during Surgery
Regarding the clot several minutes later he said, "It's translucent enough that you can see through it. You can visualize a plane between the SURGICLOT^® and the tissues so you can continue your work."

Comparison to Competing Technologies
During the procedure Dr. Ferguson used SURGICLOT^® on one side of the surgical site and his standard method of hemostasis on the other. When asked to compare the two, he said, "It's quite nice looking at the contrast between the two sides. The only blood that is present on the SURGICLOT^® side is arriving from the other side that is still bleeding."

He also said, "You can't use the other technology like this."  "It contains collagen, and can't be left in the body near the spinal cord because it swells in contact with blood and that causes a paralysis risk."  So, you must pluck it out before closing and then the wound re-bleeds. The fact of the matter is that with SURGICLOT^® you can suction clean the surgical site so you can see your dura and know that the spinal cord is ok, and then you can close without having to pluck it out and making it bleed again."

About St. Teresa
St. Teresa Medical, Inc.^®, based in Eagan, Minnesota., is a biomedical-device company developing a unique dissolvable hemostatic dressing called SURGICLOT^® for use in treating cancellous bone bleeding.  SURGICLOT^® is fabricated from electro-spun dextran nano-fibers infused with human-sourced fibrinogen and thrombin. SURGICLOT^® is the only blood-clotting technology with a rapidly dissolvable delivery mechanism, enhancing the body's natural clotting mechanism. The dextran nano-fibers dissolve within seconds in contact with bodily fluids. Upon dissolving, the thrombin acts on the fibrinogen and converts it to fibrin which forms a natural clot at the injury site which stops bleeding. 

For more information, see www.StTeresaMedical.com.  For more information, contact Brian Jackson, CFO at 651-789-4633.

SOURCE St. Teresa Medical, Inc.

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http://www.StTeresaMedical.com