Therapeutic hypothermia and temperature management
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Ther Hypothermia Temp Manag · Mar 2012
Evaluating traditional prognostic measures in patients undergoing hypothermia after cardiac arrest.
Therapeutic hypothermia is one of the few interventions that improve mortality and neurologic outcomes in patients who have experienced cardiac arrest. There is a lack of validated tools to predict survival in patients who have undergone hypothermia after cardiac arrest (HACA). ⋯ Lactate levels show promise as a biomarker for survival in HACA patients resuscitation length, presence of PCI, and APACHE-II scores can provide good prognostic information, even in the early hours following a resuscitation event.
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Ther Hypothermia Temp Manag · Mar 2012
Serum Potassium Changes During Therapeutic Hypothermia After Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest-Should It Be Treated?
Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is associated with adverse events, for example hypokalemia and arrhythmias. In the present study, we report the impact of serum potassium changes related to the rate of cardiac arrhythmias, and the advantages and disadvantages of potassium supplementation are discussed. ⋯ Serum potassium decreases significantly during the induction of TH (p=0.005). Potassium levels were not found to be different in patients with and without VF/VT in this study, perhaps due to the low number of patients, as a difference has been seen in other studies. It is recommended that an infusion of supplementary potassium be initiated during the early cooling phase in order to avoid severe hypokalemia (serum potassium <3.0 mmol/L) and terminated in due time before normothermia is reached during rewarming in order to avoid severe hyperkalemia (serum potassium >5.5 mmol/L), as serum potassium increases during rewarming.