CELOX RAPID Hemostatic Wound Packing Gauze

For external wound packing only, by trained responders. Single-patient use. Do not pack into open body cavities such as the chest or abdomen.

Tactical medics and special operations who want the shortest time from pouch to packed wound on penetrating trauma · EMS and pre-hospital crews standardizing on a chitosan gauze that irrigates out cleanly at the receiving facility · SWAT and high-risk entry teams where a compact profile matters in the individual kit · Combat lifesavers carrying a CoTCCC-recommended hemostatic dressing · Civilians building personal trauma kits who want less gauze length to manage under stress.

Scope and technique. Wound packing is a trained skill. The dressing has to be packed directly onto the bleeding source, with enough material, and held under sustained pressure — the agent does not substitute for either. Contains chitosan derived from shellfish; in life-threatening hemorrhage the benefit outweighs the theoretical allergy risk, and packing should not be withheld over a reported shellfish allergy.

One dressing, one size — 3 in. × 5 ft — in two packaging styles. Tactical Dark Packaging is the subdued outer pouch for kits where a bright wrapper is a signature problem. MARCH System Red Packaging is color-coded to the Massive-hemorrhage step of MARCH, for kits and bags organized so the right pouch is identified by color under stress.

The gauze, the Chito-R load, the dimensions and the shelf life are identical in both. The Style option changes the wrapper only.

Other formats in the same family, sold separately: CELOX Rapid Ribbon (1 in. × 5 ft) for narrow penetrating tracks where a 3-inch roll is too wide to seat against the vessel, and CELOX Z-Fold, a longer standard-density roll for large cavities.

60 seconds or 3 minutes? The CELOX instructions for use state 60 seconds of compression. The TCCC Guidelines direct a minimum of 3 minutes of sustained direct pressure for any hemostatic dressing. These are two different standards; MED-TAC teaches the TCCC one, because it is the more conservative and because responders train across several products. Hold three minutes, and do not lift the packing to check a clot that is holding. If the packing fails and bleeding continues, remove it and repack with a fresh dressing.

Is it CoTCCC-recommended? Yes. The TCCC Guidelines (25 JAN 2024) name QuikClot Combat Gauze as the dressing of choice, with the CELOX line, ChitoGauze, XStat and iTClamp named alongside it. Note that CELOX Rapid and CELOX Gauze are different products with different SKUs — both are CoTCCC-recommended, and neither substitutes for the other on a packing list. What separates CELOX Rapid is compression time, not standing.

Casualties on anticoagulants. There is no drug-history-based selection rule in the TCCC Guidelines, and you should not go looking for one mid-bleed. Both kaolin- and chitosan-based dressings retain substantial activity in anticoagulated blood; in a 2023 viscoelastic study using blood from patients on enoxaparin, heparin plus aspirin, apixaban and phenprocoumon, kaolin produced the largest improvements in clot formation of the agents tested (Lechner et al., Transfusion 2023;63(S3):S159–S167). Use whichever effective hemostatic gauze is in your kit, pack onto the bleeding source, hold pressure — and reassess more often, because anticoagulation does raise the risk of recurrent hemorrhage.

At definitive care. The chitosan gel is water-soluble; the surgical team removes the dressing by physical extraction followed by sterile saline irrigation, with less mechanical disruption to the wound bed. Do not remove packed gauze pre-hospital unless it has failed and you are repacking.