New treatment of cool and "rewarming" cardiac patients cuts death rate (Singapore)

Cooling the bodies of cardiac arrest patients to below normal, then "rewarming" them, can help to cut death rates and limit brain damage, doctors at Singapore General Hospital have found. Preliminary results from a clinical trial on 40 patients found a 25 per cent increase in survival rate in patients given the cooling treatment, called therapeutic hypothermia. The new method involves rapidly cooling the person's body to between 32 and 34 degree Celsius. There are two methods: pumping cool saline into a catheter that is inserted into the patient's body or wrapping cool gel pads around the patient. This is maintained for 12 to 24 hours, after which the person is gradually warmed back to normal body temperature of about 37 degrees Celsius. This spells significant promise for the 1,500 people a year who suffer a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital, given that the survival rate is a 2.7 per cent

New York City pushes cooling therapy for cardiac arrest

"Starting on January 1, New York City ambulances will take many cardiac arrest patients only to hospitals that use a delicate cooling therapy believed to reduce the chances of brain damage and increase the chances of survival, even if it means bypassing closer emergency rooms. The move by the city's Fire Department and Emergency Medical Service, after a year of preparation, indicates a shift away from the prevailing view among emergency workers and the public that how fast critically ill patients reach the hospital is more important than which hospital treats them. It amounts to an endorsement by the Bloomberg administration of a labor-intensive, often expensive and still-developing therapy that smaller community hospitals say they lack the staffing and financial wherewithal to provide" - TheLedger.com

Doctors experimenting with therapeutic cooling

"It's been proven that after a heart attack or stroke, the quicker you get medical attention, the better. 'After a heart attack, there is lack of blood flow to the brain and that lack of blow flow causes an injury to the brain and that injury can go on for the next 24 to 48 hours,' said Dr. Gary Bernardini, a neurologist at Albany Medical Center. According to Dr. Bernardini, a loss of blood or oxygen to the brain can cause permanent damage, but thanks to an experimental process called therapeutic cooling, the amount of neurological damage may be reduced" - News 10 Now