• Jun Guan, Denise Barbut, Hao Wang, Yongqin Li, Min-Shan Tsai, Shijie Sun, Becky Inderbitzen, Max Harry Weil, and Wanchun Tang.
• Well Institute of Critical Care Medicine, Rancho Mirage, CA, USA.
• Crit. Care Med. 2008 Nov 1; 36 (11 Suppl): S428-33.

ObjectiveEmploying transnasal head-cooling in a pig model of prolonged ventricular fibrillation, we compared the effects of 4 hrs of head-cooling started during cardiopulmonary resuscitation with those of 8 hrs of surface-cooling started at 2 hrs after resuscitation on 96-hr survival and neurologic outcomes.DesignProspective controlled animal study.SettingUniversity-affiliated research laboratory.SubjectsDomestic pigs.InterventionsTwenty-four male pigs were subjected to 10 min of untreated ventricular fibrillation followed by 5 min of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. In the head-cooling group, hypothermia was started with cardiopulmonary resuscitation and continued for 4 hrs after resuscitation. In the surface-cooling group, systemic hypothermia with a cooling blanket was started, in accord with current clinical practices, at 2 hrs after resuscitation and continued for 8 hrs. Methods in the control animal studies were identical except for temperature interventions.Measurements And Main ResultsAll animals were resuscitated except for one animal in each of the surface-cooling and control groups. After 5 min of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, jugular vein temperature was significantly decreased in the head-cooled animals. However, there were no differences in pulmonary artery temperatures among the three groups at that time. Nevertheless, both head-cooled and surface-cooled animals had an improved 96-hr survival after resuscitation. Significantly better neurologic outcomes were observed in early head-cooled animals in the first 3 days after resuscitation.ConclusionEarly head-cooling during cardiopulmonary resuscitation continuing for 4 hrs after resuscitation produced favorable survival and neurologic outcomes in comparison with delayed surface-cooling of 8 hrs duration.

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