Red Blood Cell Substitutes: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

Polyhemoglobin is already well into the final stages of clinical trials in humans. One has been approved for routine clinical use in South Africa. Perfluorochemicals are chemical oxygen carriers that are being actively developed with some in the advanced stages of clinical trials. Meanwhile, new generations of modified Hb are being developed that can modulate the effects of nitric oxide. Other systems are also being developed to include antioxidant properties for those clinical applications that may have potential problems related to oxygen radicals. Other products in advanced stages of animal testing are based on hemoglobin-lipid vesicles, heme-albumin and heme-lipid vesicles. A further development is the use of nanotechnology and biodegradable copolymers to prepare nano-dimension artificial red blood cells containing hemoglobin and complex enzyme systems.