Pushing the front line forward

Designed to help patients survive emergency situations and three years in the making, the COBRA-OS from Front Line Medical Technologies receives Health Canada approval

Photo: Drs. Adam Power and Asha Parekh of Front Line Medical Technologies, Inc. (file photo)

FRONT LINE MEDICAL Technologies, Inc. has received Health Canada approval for its COBRA-OS (Control of Bleeding, Resuscitation, Arterial Occlusion System) device after three years of research and development.

The COBRA-OS is an innovative, easy-to-use aortic occlusion device with an extremely low-profile for temporary hemorrhage control and resuscitation.

“Even with all the advances in medicine today, trauma patients are primarily still dying from blood loss – this is our chance to change that,” says Dr. Adam Power, practicing vascular surgeon and co-founder of Front Line Medical Technologies. “While REBOA continues to emerge as a life-saving procedure, we saw the need for a simple, fast, low-profile device to maximize its benefit and ultimately save more lives.”

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REBOA (resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta) is used in emergency situations when patients require hemodynamic support to maintain blood flow to the brain and heart, acting as a bridge to definitive care. COBRA-OS™ is the first 4 French (the French scale is commonly used to measure the size of a catheter). REBOA device – the smallest on the market. Its significantly decreased size allows health care personnel to quickly and easily deploy, decreasing the time of the procedure and potentially improving patient outcomes.

The device can be used in multiple situations, including non-compressible torso hemorrhage in trauma, postpartum hemorrhage and gastrointestinal hemorrhage. While it has been primarily performed in-hospital, it is currently also being deployed in pre-hospital settings and military environments and being investigated for nontraumatic cardiac arrest.

“We have already seen great results, both from our pre-clinical and user validation studies,” adds Dr. Asha Parekh, biomedical engineer, co-founder and CEO of Front Line Medical Technologies. “When it comes to blood loss, timing is crucial, and while most REBOA procedures take about 10 minutes, the COBRA-OS has taken just over a minute in our studies. Our ultimate goal is to lower the barriers to REBOA use around the world and after three years of hard work behind the scenes, Health Canada approval is our first step in making that happen.”