Cooling the Brain Helps After Cardiac Arrest

A new study suggests that even modest cooling of the brain might have significant benefit to patients who have been resuscitated after cardiac arrest.

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh (PA, USA) used rats that had been anesthetized and subjected to cardiac arrest, and examined the severity and duration of ensuing brain injury. The rats were resuscitated with chest compression and epinephrine, and cranial temperatures were monitored and controlled at 37ºC (normal), 35ºC, and 33ºC. Neurologic scores were measured daily, and at the end of 14 days the patients' brains were examined for damage.

Rats cooled to 33ºC did best, as measured by neurologic scores, median days to return to normal, and neuron density in the hippocampus. The 35ºC group had somewhat lower results while the normal group had the worst outcomes. The results were presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine in May 2006 in San Francisco (CA, USA).

Although cooling a patient by 3-4ºC during the first day after resuscitation has been demonstrated to improve the odds of a good recovery, few patients receive this therapy. However, the researchers noted that the benefit of cooling only 2ºC was similar to 4ºC cooling.



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