NIRSense, Inc. today announced its participation in Balikatan-26, supporting the US Army Pacific (USARPAC)’s 18th Theater Medical Command (18th TMC) as they evaluate advanced approaches to battlefield casualty assessment using portable tissue oxygen saturation (StO₂) monitoring.
Balikatan, meaning “shoulder-to-shoulder,” is the longstanding U.S.-Philippine bilateral exercise designed to strengthen interoperability and regional readiness through combined operations and training. Within that operational context, NIRSense’s participation highlights the growing importance of advanced hemodynamic monitoring tools for combat casualty care, particularly in austere, distributed, and time-sensitive environments.
NIRSense’s miniaturized tissue oxygenation technology is designed to provide clinicians and medics with real-time, non-invasive insight into tissue perfusion and oxygen delivery at the point of injury. In battlefield casualties, especially those involving extremity trauma, hemorrhage, shock, or tourniquet use, conventional vital signs may not fully reflect local tissue compromise. StO₂ assessment can add another layer of objective information to support triage, intervention, evacuation, and reassessment decisions.
“Balikatan-26 provides an important opportunity to work alongside operational medical teams in a realistic training environment and demonstrate how tissue oxygenation monitoring can help inform battlefield casualty assessment,” said Robert Furberg, PhD, TP-C of NIRSense. “Our goal is to equip combat medics with actionable data that goes beyond standard vital signs alone and supports earlier recognition of compromised perfusion in injured warfighters.”
The company’s technology builds on NIRSense’s broader mission to deliver ruggedized physiological monitoring capabilities for use beyond traditional hospital environments. As described in the company’s January 21, 2026 announcement regarding deployment of its tissue oxygenation systems for frontline casualty care support in Ukraine, the platform is intended to help users assess and monitor tissue perfusion and oxygenation in real time, with potential relevance to limb salvage, reperfusion strategy, and resource prioritization in operational settings.
During Balikatan-26, NIRSense supported training and evaluation activities focused on how StO₂ monitoring may contribute to combat medic decision-making during casualty assessment workflows. The effort was intended to help operational users explore where tissue oxygenation data may complement existing battlefield care practices, including assessment of extremity injury, response to tourniquet application, and identification of patients who may require urgent intervention or evacuation.
NIRSense is working to provide advanced physiologic sensing, including tissue oxygenation assessment, that can play a meaningful role in the next generation of combat casualty care and help clinicians and medics see beyond pulse oximetry and traditional vital signs to better understand what is happening at the tissue level.
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