Colder Temperatures Help Heart Patients

Researchers at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston have discovered that lowering a patient’s body temperature shortly after cardiac arrest may protect the brain from damage and aid in recovery.

Dr. James Grotta, professor of neurology and director of the school’s Stroke Team, recently reported in the journal Circulation that four of nine patients who suffered cardiac arrest and were without a pulse for an average of 11 minutes survived after doctors lowered their body temperature to 91.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

Three of those patients recovered completely, with no apparent brain damage. A fourth patient suffered some memory impairment and the other five patients died.

"Generally only a very small percentage of patients fully recover," Dr. Grotta said. "When a patient’s heart stops, the blood flow to the brain stops. Most of the time, if they survive, they are left with severe brain damage, so we are encouraged by these findings."

Dr. Grotta said the patients were rolled in cooling blankets, and hypothermia was maintained for 24 hours, followed by passive re-warming. "One of the things the study found was that we could do this safely," he said. The cooling seemed to protect the brain from further damage and resulted in no serious complications.

One drawback, Dr. Grotta said, is that it took three to six hours to lower patients’ temperatures with the blankets. He is now researching a method in which he uses a catheter to cool patients’ blood, which he says can drop body temperature much more quickly.

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URL: http://www.tmc.edu/tmcnews/11_15_01/page_20.html