AHA: Cooling Cardiac Arrest Victims’ Brains Before Admission Appears Beneficial
From MedPage Today:
Cooling the brain of a person shortly after an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest may improve the chances of survival without brain damage, researchers reported here.
Across 15 EMS systems in Europe, patients who had intranasal brain cooling within 10 minutes of CPR initiation were more likely to have good neurological function at discharge than those who received standard treatment (45.5% versus 17.6%, P=0.01), according to Maaret Castrén, MD, of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
Brain-cooled patients also demonstrated significantly better survival to discharge (59.1% versus 29.4%, P<0.05).
In patients who had CPR started more than 10 minutes after the arrest, there were trends toward a benefit in the intranasal cooling group, although the study was not powered for efficacy outcomes, Castrén reported at the American Heart Association meeting.
The PRINCE (Pre-resuscitation Intranasal Cooling Effectiveness) study set out to assess the safety and feasibility of using an intranasal cooling device during CPR in the pre-hospital setting.
The device, called RhinoChill, is noninvasive and introduces a volatile coolant that evaporates and removes heat through nasal prongs. It is battery powered and does not require refrigeration.
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