Cooling benefits cardiac arrest patients

VIENNA, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- Cooling a patient's body after cardiac arrest could lessen brain damage and improve the chances for survival, researchers in Vienna said.

Patients whose bodies have been cooled to 91 degrees Fahrenheit for 24 hours after cardiac arrest are 40 percent to 80 percent more likely to leave the hospital without major disability, Dr. Jasmin Arrich of the Medical University of Vienna said in a release Friday.

Therapeutic hypothermia puts the brain into hibernation while the body clears toxins that build up during cardiac arrest, she said.

Arrich and her team compiled data from three studies of 481 patients who had suffered cardiac arrest, undergone cardiopulmonary resuscitation, CPR, and had their hearts restarted.

The research confirms the usefulness of what many doctors already believed was best for cardiac arrest patients, said Dr. Clifton Callaway, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Mild hypothermia "decreases brain injury, so that the person can go back home fully intact mentally and physically," Callaway said.