• Harald G Fritz and Reinhard Bauer.
• Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, University Hospital, Jena, Germany. Harald.Fritz@med.uni-jena.de
• J Neurosurg Anesthesiol. 2004 Jan 1; 16 (1): 43-52.

AbstractHypothermia has been shown to be cerebroprotective in traumatized brains. Although a large number of traumatic brain injury (TBI) studies in animals have shown that hypothermia is effective in suppressing a variety of damaging mechanisms, clinical investigations have shown less consistent results. The complexity of damaging mechanisms in human TBI may contribute to these discrepancies. In particular, secondary injuries such as hypotension and hypoxemia may promote poor outcome. However, few experimental TBI studies have employed complex models that included such secondary injuries to clarify the efficacy of hypothermia. This review discusses the effects of hypothermia in various TBI models addressing primary and acute secondary injuries. Included are recently published clinical data using hypothermia as a therapeutic tool for preventing or reducing the detrimental posttraumatic secondary injuries and neurobehavioral deficits. Also discussed are recent successful applications of hypothermia from outside the TBI realm. Based on all available data, some general considerations for the application of hypothermia in TBI patients are given.

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