Chill therapy in the patients with resuscitated cardiac arrest: a new weapon in the battle against anoxic brain injury

Abstract

Improved cooling technologies (such as newer intravascular cooling devices) may result in earlier attainment of target temperature and even more robust clinical benefits in the management of the survivors of cardiac arrest. Earlier cooling may also be facilitated by the introduction of cooled saline infusions in the emergency room setting, prior to induction of cooling in the intensive care unit. However, there is a need for studies of adjunctive therapies to minimize the risk of medical complications associated with hypothermia, the most serious of which is infection. We strongly believe that larger confirmatory studies might encourage more widespread adoption of therapeutic hypothermia for survivors of cardiac arrest and further studies are also needed to evaluate the utility of this procedure for more expanded indications, including asystole, pulseless electrical activity, and in-hospital arrest in patients without significant comorbidity.