Cooling treatment after cardiac arrest improves outcome
August 6th, 2009 - 1:07 pm ICT by IANS ( Leave a comment )Washington, Aug 6 (IANS) A novel cooling treatment can improve the outcome after a heart attack, says a new study.
The treatment, which lowers body temperature to prevent damage to the brain and other major organs when blood flow is restored after cardiac arrest, is considered “good value”, compared to many other widely utilized medical procedures, including dialysis.
“Having already established that hypothermia improves neurological outcomes after cardiac arrest, we now know that the therapy is also a good use of health care resources,” said study co-author Raina M. Merchant, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
“We hope our findings will help more hospitals and insurers adopt cooling protocols and help more survivors return to productive lives,” Merchant added.
Despite national recommendations established in 2005 calling for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients to be treated with hypothermia when they remain comatose after resuscitation, many hospitals still don’t offer the intervention.
These findings were published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.
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Tags: blood flow, body temperature, cardiac arrest patients, circulation, co author, dialysis, health care resources, heart attack, hypothermia, medical procedures, national recommendations, neurological outcomes, organs, pennsylvania school, productive lives, raina, school of medicine, survivors, university of pennsylvania, university of pennsylvania school of medicine
