505

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Introduction: Therapeutic hypothermia has been the standard treatment for unconscious patients with return of spontaneous circulation(ROSC) after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest(OHCA). There are a variety of cooling methods to induce therapeutic hypothermia to cool core body temperature below 34°C. The American Heart Association (AHA) and European Resuscitation Council (ERC) guidelines recommend easy and inexpensive methods such as rapid intravenous infusion of cold saline as a priority. But, the most effective cooling technique has not been proven well. Thus we compared the cooling rate of the conventional method with cold saline bladder irrigation with the commercial hydrogel pad in OHCA patients. Methods: Data were extracted from the our hypothermia database from Jan.,2010 to Mar.,2012. The conventional method group induced hypothermia by intravenous infusion of 2000ml of 4°C cold saline with cold saline bladder irrigation. The hydrogel pad group used surface cooling gel pad (ArticSun®) after intravenous infusion of 2000ml of 4°C cold saline. The induction time was defined as time to reach up to 33°C of core body temperature from infusion of coldsaline. We compared the induction time and cooling rate between the cooling methods. Results: The 81 patients were enrolled. 57 patients were the hydrogel pad group and 24 patients were the conventional group. There were no statistical differences of baseline characteristic between 2 groups. The induction time of the conventional group (149min) was shorter than that of the hydrogel pad group (168min). The cooling rate of the conventional group (1.51°C/hr) was greater than that of the hydrogel pad group (1.48°C/hr). But, there were no statistical differences. Conclusions: The conventional method by infusion of intravenous cold saline is as effective as commercial hydrogel pad for induction of therapeutic hypothermia patients successfully resuscitated from cardiac arrest.