This revolutionary casualty evacuation system was demonstrated at an event hosted at the Frontline Club in London’s West End on May 26. The Frontline Club is a venue for anyone with an interest in international affairs and supports events about ‘frontline issues’ in war-torn regions.
At the event, panellists in the UK and Ukraine showcased how medical innovation could improve the outlook for severely injured and traumatised casualties of the Ukraine war.
The thread connecting every speaker was improving patient outcomes. This was best demonstrated by ThermoTraumaPort (TTP) which was co-invented by a lady of Goan origin, Mary Anne Cordeiro, who traces her roots to Saligao.
When contacted, Cordeiro said it is well-accepted that the Lethal Triad is a spiral of three factors which converge in major trauma: hypothermia (core temperature below 35°C), coagulopathy (disrupted clotting), and acidosis (dangerous blood acidity from poor tissue perfusion).
“Each worsens the other two. Once under way in a casualty, the cycle is far harder to interrupt than to prevent. Dr Jeremy Mauger, co-inventor of TTP and a clinician at East Anglian Air Ambulance had watched this happen repeatedly: patients who are warm at the scene of an accident but haemorrhaging and in shock deteriorate across many transfers before reaching a hospital bed.”
“The clinical insight was clear and defined ” and a gap waiting to be translated into a manufacturable device. Out of this was born the TTP.”
Mary Anne Cordeiro is Founder and CEO of ThermoTraumaPort (TTP). She has led TTP's clinical and commercial development over eight years. The device is patented in the US and Europe and is preparing for deployment with US military customers.
Dr Jeremy Mauger is a Consultant Anaesthetist and Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine physician with over twenty years in critical care and intensive care. He works with East Anglian Air Ambulance and the Suffolk Accident Rescue Service.
Dr Jeremy Mauger and Sally of the East Anglian Air Ambulance service while demonstrating the ThermoTraumaPort during a mock casualty evacuation.
If Dr Mauger showed that there was a clinical gap which resulted in worse patient outcomes and possible death, Cordeiro articulated the solution.
“TTP keeps a patient on a single, active warming, pressure-distributing system from the site of injury through to their final hospital bed ” no exchanges back to cold surfaces, active temperature maintenance throughout,” explained Cordeiro.
“It inverted the standard manufacturer-led model: the clinical insight came first, the specification followed. It took eight years from identification to backing by NIHR funding, angel investment, private capital, patent protection, and regulatory navigation across the UK, Europe, and the US.”
Cordeiro, was candid about the lengthy timelines ” and clear that TTP now represents a patented, FDA 510(k)-exempt and registered, robust solution that could be used for military and civilian deployment.
“TTP is proof that the pipeline, for all its friction, can be navigated,” she said.
Cordeiro added that at the Frontline Club event, experts in infection control and surgery joined by video-link from Kyiv.
“They shocked the assembled audience with statistics that were horrifying: on arrival in hospital, more than 90% of casualties are infected and 37% of casualties carry pan-resistant infections,” said Cordeiro.
“The Medevac chain explains why - drone surveillance and contested airspace have turned rapid extraction into journeys of hours to days, with evacuation teams themselves targeted by the enemy.”
“This requires a revolutionary approach for treatment to halt the spread of infection and save lives. The Kyiv experts’ proposal was to treat the war-wounded as if they have been exposed to a biological agent so that decontamination should be applied as early as possible from point of injury.”
According to Cordeiro, what made the event particularly significant was the convergence in the discussion.
“Thermal management and infection control are not competing interventions ” they are components of the same system. The clinical insights exist. The device exists. The data architecture is understood. The biosecurity evidence is published,” said Cordeiro.
“The regulatory pathway has been navigated. Each piece is in place. What remains is the commitment by all participants in conversation at the event to assemble them into a solution.
“Upstream decontamination and thermal stabilisation will together fill the gaps missing in the Medevac system. Our task is to build that coherent system which combines the proposed protocol to break the contamination cascade as early as possible whilst reducing the risk of the Lethal Triad through use of the TTP.”
