Dropping body temp raising odds of survival
PUTTING HUMANS INTO SUSPENDED ANIMATION — the stuff of science fiction movies such as Avatar - could arrive in emergency medicine sooner than you think, doctors and researchers say.
"It's slowly coming true," said Dr. Richard Summers, chairman of emergency medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. "It will be Star Trek before we know it."
A step toward that day is already happening at Jackson-area hospitals that are using therapeutic hypothermia to slow down the metabolism of Mississippians who have suffered cardiac arrest, thereby increasing their chance of survival and reducing their chance of brain damage. On May 20, American Medical Response ambulances began carrying coolers so paramedics can start therapy in the field.
For decades, doctors have focused on the supply side by giving patients more oxygen and blood, Summers said. "Now we're working on the demand side, where their body doesn't demand as much blood and oxygen."
Dr. Eric Zoog, emergency room medical director for Baptist Medical Center, has championed therapeutic hypothermia in Mississippi.
The idea of using cold for treatment is hardly new, dating as far back as Hippocrates, he said. "It's finally come back into the scientific mainstream."
Since 2008, Baptist's Cardiac Arrest Center has been able to improve survival rates for cardiac arrest patients in Mississippi.
Years ago, a national survey showed Americans believe 80 percent of those who suffer a cardiac arrest away from the hospital survive. The actual number was only 8 percent, Zoog said.
He said the key to improving this survival rate rests on two things: getting paramedics and people to administer improved CPR, now known as cardiac cerebral resuscitation.
Gone is mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and in is 100 chest compressions a minute, he said. "If you can't keep track, you can simply go to the beat of the song, Stayin' Alive."
CCR, combined with therapeutic hypothermia, has increased the survival rate at Baptist to 44.4 percent for the 17 patients treated by the center, he said.
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