U.S. Army Lt. Col. Bradley Dengler, the neurosurgery consultant to the Army Surgeon General, with Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, shows Col. Jessica Peck, the command surgeon for 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, how to use the i-Stat Alinity at LRMC, Germany on May 21. The device is a portable blood analyzer used to detect traumatic brain injures and delivers real-time, lab-quality diagnostic test results. U.S. Army Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Jacob Kohrs
July 16 (UPI) -- U.S. Army medics in Europe said Thursday they are testing a new handheld diagnostic tool that can identify traumatic brain injuries in as little as 15 minutes.
Military officials predicted the new i-STAT Alinity device, made by Abbott Laboratories, can revolutionize the way medics can detect and treat such injuries quickly in the battlefield environment.
Rather than traditional methods of assessing brain injury or concussion by making subjective judgements based on questioning patients, the new device can yield objective information by measuring unique biomarkers that are present in the blood of the injured.
Lt. Col. Bradley Dengler, the neurosurgery consultant to the Army Surgeon General and director of the Military Traumatic Brain Injury Initiative at the Uniformed Services University, said the development of the i-STAT Alinity is a game-changer.
