Induced Hypothermia Can Worsen Outcomes After Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

Induced hypothermia has become popular for treating cerebral edema from traumatic brain injury (TBI), but we do not know the effect on long-term outcomes. Therefore, European investigators performed a multicenter randomized trial of hypothermia for TBI. The authors recruited patients with TBI and intracranial pressure >20 mm Hg for ≥5 minutes despite first-line therapy with mechanical ventilation, sedation, analgesia, head-of-bed elevation, cerebrospinal fluid drainage, and surgical removal of space-occupying lesions. Participants …