Insufficient Use of Hypothermia in Cardiac Arrest Treatment in US Hospitals

Despite evidence of therapeutic hypothermia to ease mortality and improve neurologic outcomes after a heart attack, it was seldom used in a sample of more than 26,000 patients, states a study published in Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

Therapeutic hyperthermia was used in only 0.35% of cases of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in this study. The authors, Pratik Patel, Sayona John, Rajeev Garg, Richard Temes, Thomas Bleck, and Shyam Prabhakaran, from Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, state that "Continued education, dissemination of evidence-based guidelines to community hospitals, the development of and preferential transport of patients to designated cardiac arrest treatment centers, and enhanced reimbursement may help increase its application in clinical practice." The article is entitled "Therapeutic Hypothermia After Cardiac Arrest is Underutilized in the United States."