Induced hypothermia harmful for brain injury patients
Induced hypothermia, or cooling the patient’s body to prevent brain swelling after a head injury, will do more harm than good as it prevents the long-term recovery, a study finds.
The researchers from the University of Edinborough found that induced hypothermia was successful at reducing the build-up of pressure in the skull after head injury. Six months later, however, patients who had received the therapy were more likely to fare worse than those treated with standard care.
Researchers tracked the outcomes of almost 400 cases of traumatic brain injuries from 18 different countries.
Around half of the patients were treated with standard procedures. The other half were treated with induced hypothermia to try to protect the brain from further damage caused by swelling.
Favourable outcomes, ranging from moderate disability to good recovery, occurred in only a quarter of the patients in the hypothermia group compared with more than a third of patients in the control group.
Doctors ended the trial early because of fears that the therapy may cause harm to some patients.
Induced hypothermia is a common practice in some intensive care units in North America and the Europe. The procedure involves cooling the body between two and five degrees below normal body temperature of 37 degrees Celsius. Patients are given ice cold intravenous drips within 10 days of their accident. They are kept cool using either cold water blankets or cooling pads for at least 48 hours, after which they are gradually re-warmed to normal body temperature.
Researchers will present their findings at the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine Annual Congress in Berlin on October 7. They will also discuss the results of the trial at the Neurocritical Care Society annual meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA on October 9.
Category: Features, Health alert
