Artificial blood transfusion hits 44th anniversary since first procedure in 1979

Although the first blood transfusion (read more about blood transfusions in books available on Amazon) took place in 1665 between dogs and only two years later, the first human transfusion involved using sheep blood on a 15-year-old boy, more than 300 years had to pass before the first artificial blood transfusion took place in the US. 

On November 21, 1979, The New York Times published an article about the groundbreaking medical procedure that took place the prior day at the University of Minnesota Hospital in Minneapolis. The patient was an unnamed 67-year-old Jehovah's Witness, who had a surgery four weeks before he received two transfusions of Fluosol for a total of six pints of artificial blood. 

Fluosol was developed in Japan by Osaka-headquartered Green Cross Corporation, and then tested on about 50 patients before it arrived in the US. Back then, the FDA had to approve each transfusion, and the aforementioned Jehovah's Witness was the fourth candidate after the first three had been rejected.

As of 2023, Fluosol is no longer in use due to side effects, although is was finally approved by the FDA in 1989. Other perfluorocarbon products with similar use that weren't even approved by the FDA are the US-made Oxygent and Oxycyte alongside the Russian-Mexican effort Perftoran. However, this one was rebranded as Vidaphor and is currently awaiting clinical trials.