Rapid cooling may help a heart attack victim: Study

Dr. Maaret Castren, professor of emergency medicine at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm who led the study stated, “We now have a method that is safe and can be started within minutes of cardiac arrest to minimize(brain) damage during this very critical period.”

Over the years, the general medical procedure following a cardiac arrest is to cool the patient's body once blood circulation stabilizes in order to prevent brain and tissue damage.

In the Prince (Pre-Resuscitation Intra-Nasal Cooling Effectiveness) investigation at 14 centers across Europe, Swedish researchers examined a non–invasive device called RhinoChill which cools down the brain of heart attack patients during on-going cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) by pumping coolant into their nose.

Details of the study
The study involved 182 patients (71 percent males) with an average age of 66 years. They were divided into two groups. The first group comprised of 83 patients who received nasal cooling while the second group comprised of 99 patients who were given the standard care.

The average time between the beginning of an attack and the cooling process was 23 minutes. On arrival at hospital, the average body temperature of cooled patients was 34.2 degrees C (93.56 degrees F) as opposed to 35.5 degrees C (95.9 degrees F) in standard care patients.

Observations by the researchers
The researchers found that 46.7 percent of those in the cooling group survived until discharge from the hospital compared to 31 percent of those who received the standard care.

They also noted that 36.7 percent of those in the cooling group exhibited good neurological condition when discharged from the hospital as opposed to 21.4 percent in the standard care slot.

In addition, 137 patients whose revival process began within 10 minutes of the attack, 59.1 percent of cooled patients and 29.4 percent of standard care patients survived until hospital discharge.

Further, 45.5 percent of cooled patients and 17.6 percent of standard care patients were neurologically sound at the time of discharge.

However, the best outcome was observed in patients who received a combination of early CPR and cooling within six minutes of collapse.

"Our results show that the earlier you can do the cooling, the better. When resuscitation efforts were delayed, there was no significant difference in survival," Castren said.

The study was presented at an American Heart Association's annual meeting in Orlando, Fla on Nov. 15.