
Rapidly cooling trauma victims to buy more time for surgery - jonbaer
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/nov/20/humans-put-into-suspended-animation-for-first-time
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solotronics
"He said at least one patient had had the procedure but did not elaborate on
whether that patient or any others had survived." I think this is a pretty
important detail to leave out.

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sp332
According to an interview, they're trying to get the survival rate of this
level of trauma up from 5-10% to maybe 20%.
[https://www.popsci.com/reanimators/](https://www.popsci.com/reanimators/) So
there's not much to tell from one person surviving or not.

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ramblerman
There is something to tell from just one person surviving. That would be a
world first, and implies this 'could' actually work.

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juliangoldsmith
My wife is an RN in the ICU, and she has had patients on an Arctic Sun. That
also cools the body to prevent brain damage, but it only brings the
temperature down by a few degrees (around 91.4 F, or 33 C).

Patients on an Arctic Sun usually don't survive, but that's generally due to
the condition that put them there to begin with. (For instance, one patient
had a blood sugar of 1600; a normal blood sugar is around 100.) She did have
one patient who made it off the Arctic Sun with no deficit; without it, he may
very well be brain-dead.

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felipelemos
"The Arctic Sun Temperature Management System is a non-invasive targeted
temperature management system, a medical device used to modulate patient
temperature with precision by circulating chilled water in pads directly
adhered to the patient's skin. Using varying water temperatures and a
sophisticated computer algorithm, a patient's body temperature can be
controlled to the nearest 0.2 °C. It is produced by Medivance, Inc. of
Louisville, Colorado." [1]

For those who don't know what Arctic Sun is, like me.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Sun_medical_device](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Sun_medical_device)

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sp332
I thought this sounded familiar. They tried to run this trial in Pittsburgh
back in 2014 but didn't get a statistically useful number of patients.
[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/28/can-
hypothermi...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/28/can-hypothermia-
save-gunshot-victims) The new trial was started in Baltimore in 2016.

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harimau777
The last paragraph seems to suggest that this isn't actually the first time
that people have been put into "suspended animation" via extreme cold, rather
it is the first time it was done in an emergency setting.

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ChuckMcM
I'm guessing its a bit marketing and a bit semantics.

I am not a doctor and I'm relating this incident third hand, but as explained
to me it went like this: A person at our church had a heart attack and
essentially died, they were then put into a deep chill / ice bath, then
transported to the hospital. At the hospital they received a multiple bypass
operation and then were brought up to temperature and out of their induced
coma. They recovered and have suffered no ill effects (other than they would
because their arteries were clogged). I got the impression that this
chilling/induced coma kind of thing was 'new' but no longer experimental.

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leesalminen
We had a very similar situation with my father-in-law earlier this year,
unfortunately though, he never did wake up from the induced coma. He died.

The biggest takeaway for me was to learn CPR and PRACTICE it every year
(through re-certification). My father-in-law went without CPR for ~9 minutes-
basically pegging his chance at survival to 0. Who knows what the outcome
would've been if someone who knew CPR was present to start immediately.

Seriously, get certified and practice CPR techniques. It could save a life one
day.

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iandanforth
As a companion to this I highly recommend this article on what happens to the
brain during death:

[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ana.25147](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ana.25147)

This is what they are trying to prevent.

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brohee
Also : "Nobody is dead until warm and dead"
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030095721...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0300957214005243)

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justinclift
It'd be interesting if they could use a solution which had a very high content
of usable oxygen (fake blood replacement?) instead of water.

Maybe they are, and it's just not mentioned?

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rtkwe
There have been years of attempts at creating an artificial blood O2 and CO2
carrier but so far nothing really viable has seemed to come out. In the mean
time they're just slowing down the chemical processes that cause so much
damage to the brain in the absence of oxygen.

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DennisP
Seems like a combination approach might help. Even if a carrier isn't good
enough at body temperature, it might extend viability when chilled, compared
to just using saline.

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justinclift
Wonder how feasible it'd be to er... super saturate "stock" blood (eg from
blood packs) with extra oxygen carrying red blood cells? Preferably oxygenated
just prior to being used for this.

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rtkwe
Doesn't really help if the path to the brain is leaking like a sieve. Also one
of the goals with blood substitutes was to make them physically smaller than
red blood cells to get past the second issue which is swelling that can
restrict blood supplies. The idea was a smaller O2 carrying molecule could
squeeze through where a red blood cell couldn't.

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alexfromapex
Reminds me of the House episode

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buboard
or Idiocracy

