Dr. Feldschuh, CEO of Daxor, Returned to Work After Fracturing a Hip, Speaks About Extensive Blood Loss; Daxor Will Provide a New Service to Hospitals and Patients

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Apr 10, 2014) - Daxor Corporation, (NYSE MKT: DXR) an investment company with medical instrumentation and biotechnology operations, announced that its President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Joseph Feldschuh, returned to work and it plans to provide a new service to benefit medical facilities and the general public.

On February 4, 2014 Dr. Feldschuh was taken to Montefiore Medical Center where emergency surgery was performed after he slipped on ice and fractured his hip. In a previous press release issued on February 20, 2014, Dr. Feldschuh described how he received a unit of his own frozen blood which had been stored four-and-a-half years ago at the Daxor storage facility in Manhattan.

Of particular interest was the hospital report from the surgeon that showed blood loss during surgery was of between 150 to 200 ml. of blood. Three weeks after surgery and after discharge from the rehabilitation facility, a blood volume test was performed using the Daxor BVA-100 system. This report documented that Dr. Feldschuh lost approximately 1700 to 2000 ml. of blood, or approximately 35 to 38% of his blood volume. His blood loss had been only partially restored by receiving one unit of his own previously stored blood. More surprisingly, the test showed that Dr. Feldschuh had regenerated only a minimum amount of the blood that was lost since his surgery.

Traumatic hip fractures in patients between 60 to 95 years old are associated with a 25 to 27% death rate within one year. Patients can suffer death, or complications in the immediate post-operative period, as well as months later. A significant percentage of such patients experience kidney failure as well as neurological damage as manifested by various degrees of memory loss and dementia.

Dr. Feldschuh's medical and surgical treatment was unusual because he made many of the key decisions, such as receiving his own limited amount of stored blood that was available. In the immediate post-op period, he was informed he had been receiving a widely used anti-coagulant platelet blocking drug by injection. This drug has no antidote. What is more significant is that there is no test available to measure the degree of anti-coagulation. Anti-coagulation is commonly used to avoid blood clots. He refused further treatment with this drug and insisted he be treated with Warfrin which is an anti-coagulant that has been in use for more than 30 years, for which there is a standard test, a prothrombin time, to measure the degree of anti-coagulation. Most importantly, there is an antidote readily available to reverse evidence of excessive anti-coagulation which may cause a hemorrhage. Patients who are on platelet blocker anti-coagulants can only be treated with more transfusions if they are bleeding, because there is no antidote available.

Dr. Feldschuh was able to conduct corporate work while at the rehabilitation facility, as well as from home, with the assistance of a staff member. Rehabilitation has progressed to the point where Dr. Feldschuh now utilizes only a cane for walking. Dr. Feldschuh made the following statement "When I helped develop the first autologous long-term blood storage facility in the U.S. I did this in response to my father's illness and death from a contaminated blood transfusion. I never actually thought that I would utilize my own blood. The FDA has approved the use of frozen blood for up to 10 years.

"I was well aware of previous studies from Duke University which showed permanent memory loss in 40% of patients undergoing major orthopedic surgery such as hip replacement. Patients with traumatic hip fractures tend to bleed even more than patients who have elective non-emergency hip surgery. I was very concerned before and after my surgery that I could experience brain damage. Most patients are not in a position to make any knowledgeable decisions about their treatment. I was fortunate that I had frozen blood stored. I also made a key decision not to permit aggressive anti-coagulation after surgery. It is astonishing that I lost, in total, almost 10 times as much blood as the surgeons estimated I lost during surgery. In surgical patients, particularly trauma patients, what is important is not just the blood loss during the surgery, but the total amount of blood loss during the entire procedure.

"At the time I received my own blood, I had a very rapid unexplained heart rate for several hours after surgery. Undoubtedly I would not have been given a transfusion if I did not have my own blood available. The standard test for transfusion decisions is a hematocrit or hemoglobin test, which only measures the thickness of an individual's blood. This 90 year old test does not determine how much blood an individual has. If an individual's blood pressure drops to extremely low levels, a transfusion may be administered regardless of this test. However, if the blood pressure collapses beyond a critical level, an individual may experience a heart attack or a stroke which can be a terminal event. Such heart attacks or strokes are almost always attributed to being a complication of the surgery. They are never attributed to being caused by a delayed transfusion or a non-transfusion.

"After one week of hospitalization, I was transferred to a rehabilitation facility where my blood pressure was routinely checked. When I stood up, I experienced a drop of more than 20 points in my blood pressure. This was consistent with my documented low blood volume measurement three weeks after my surgery. Patients who are on anti-coagulants and have low blood volume after surgery are particularly vulnerable to the effects of a sudden drop in their blood pressure. The rehabilitation facility does not have a blood bank. If I required a transfusion, I would have been transferred back to the hospital and cross matched with acceptable donor blood. This event might have required hours for completion. Fortunately in my case, after one week, despite having a lower than normal blood volume, my drops in blood pressure disappeared and I was able to undergo effective rehabilitation. I am sure I benefitted from the earlier transfusion of my own blood.

"In thinking about my experience and reviewing general practices in traumatic hip fractures where there is such a high death rate, it has been brought to my attention that there are hospitals and facilities which obtain blood from patients undergoing elective hip replacement one to three weeks prior to their surgery. Astonishingly, despite significant blood loss, a significant number of these patients are not transfused with their own blood. There should be an examination of how many patients who have donated blood for themselves subsequently suffer significant complications, including death after not being transfused with their own available blood. There can be no justification for not transfusing an anemic post-surgery patient who has their own blood available.

"In considering the events surrounding my own hospitalization and treatment and my return to work with my mental faculties intact, I intend to make the following changes for the benefit of the public: Daxor will investigate the necessary steps to provide to all members of the public as well as all medical facilities in the U.S., at no charge, with a prediction of the normal value of blood volume for a specific individual. The only information which would be needed would be the patient's sex, height and weight. The Daxor BVA-100 blood volume analyzer processes this information. This information is based on original research that was performed in the Nobel Prize laboratory of Dr. Andre Cournand at Columbia University by Dr. Feldschuh and Dr. Yale Enson."

Daxor will also provide a simple formula by which facilities that have no blood volume measurement equipment can at least have a rough estimate of how much blood a patient has lost. For example, for a male who has a normal hematocrit of 45% pre-operatively, but within a few days after surgery his hematocrit is 30%, it can be estimated that he lost 33% of his blood. The number may actually be more or less, but this at least provides a rough estimate. Women who have a normal hematocrit of 39% have approximately 18% less red blood cells than a man of equal height and weight. There have been multiple studies that demonstrate that women require more blood transfusions for identical surgical procedures. Women suffer higher complications which can be attributed to the fact that they have less blood than men.

In evaluating blood loss in surgical patients, it is important to focus not only on the amount of blood that is estimated to be lost during the surgery, but the total amount of blood lost with respect to the procedure. In my case I lost almost 10 times as much blood as the surgeons estimated that I had lost during surgery. If I had accepted treatment with an anti-coagulant for which there is no antidote and no test for effectiveness, I would have been in a much more vulnerable condition with the vast amount of blood I lost from my hip fracture.

We hope to make this information about normal individual blood volumes available within the next 120 days so it can be implemented by hospital physicians and the general public.

For more information regarding Daxor's Blood Volume Analyzer BVA-100, visit the Company's website at www.Daxor.com.