Journal of vascular and interventional neurology
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J Vasc Interv Neurol · Jan 2009
Prolonged Mild-to-Moderate Hypothermia for Refractory Intracranial Hypertension.
Therapeutic hypothermia is an emerging therapy for brain injury and cerebral edema. Hypothermia is known to reduce death and neurologic morbidity in survivors of cardiac arrest from ventricular fibrillation. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) trials studies of short-term hypothermia (24 to 48hours) have had conflicting results. Recent evidence however suggests prolonged hypothermia (48 hours to 14 days) may be beneficial for TBI and select cases of nontraumatic brain injury especially when the duration of cerebral edema and intracranial hypertension is expected to last longer than 24 hours. ⋯ We report the first case of prolonged therapeutic hypothermia over a total of 14days to control nontraumatic brain injury-related refractory intracranial pressure and global cerebral edema. More studies are needed comparing clinical outcomes and complication rates between short duration and prolonged hypothermia for brain injury.