Avitene™ Microfibrillar Collagen Hemostat for Adjunctive Hemostasis in Surgical Procedures: A Systematic Literature Review

Adequate hemostasis during surgical procedures is essential for successful patient outcomes and reduced healthcare resource utilization. Topical hemostatic agents can act as catalysts for the clotting cascade or as a scaffold to promote platelet activation or aggregation. Although an ever-increasing number of topical absorbable hemostatic agents are now available for perioperative use, health care providers are disadvantaged by the lack of comparative data on feasibility, clinical effectiveness, advantages, and limitations of each in specific surgical settings. This knowledge is important for appropriate product choice when patient characteristics, type of surgical procedure, type of bleeding, and product availability may differ widely. This manuscript provides the first comprehensive overview of Avitene™ Microfibrillar Collagen Hemostat (MCH), a bovine collagen-based absorbable hemostat that has been widely used for over four decades in the United States and abroad. MCH is indicated as an adjunct to hemostasis across a broad spectrum of surgical specialties and has been shown to achieve hemostasis with positive patient outcomes and a favorable safety profile in many applications, including hepatic, orthopedic, splenic, oral, and otolaryngologic surgery. Although published clinical data regarding the use of MCH in cardiovascular surgery is limited, evidence suggests moderate use in this specialty. The information contained in this systematic review will help health care providers understand the clinical use and effectiveness of the product to determine appropriate use in differing bleeding scenarios across multiple surgical specialties. Future studies may include comparative functional and cost analyses to explore the economic advantages of using absorbable hemostatic agents compared with each other or with conventional techniques of hemostasis, when appropriate.