High rates of cardiac arrest deaths? Hypothermia protocols help 'Cool It'

[Cardiovascular Business, July 20, 2011] Integrating therapeutic hypothermia (TH) protocols into a regional STEMI network can be an effective rescue therapy for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) that can help improve survival, according to a study published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. In fact, researchers from the Minneapolis Heart Institute (MHI) found that after integration of the protocol, 56 percent of these patients survived to hospital discharge.

"Approximately 300,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) occur annually in the United States, and these events are typically catastrophic,” Michael R. Mooney, MD, of the MHI and the Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, and colleagues wrote. Survival for patients with the condition is low, a mere 6 to 9 percent, and adverse neurological sequelae are frequent.