Doctors have put humans into a state of suspended animation for the first time in a groundbreaking trial that aims to buy more time for surgeons to save seriously injured patients.

The process involves rapidly cooling the brain to less than 10C by replacing the patient’s blood with ice-cold saline solution. Typically the solution is pumped directly into the aorta, the main artery that carries blood away from the heart to the rest of the body.

Known formally as emergency preservation and resuscitation, or EPR, the procedure is being trialled on people who sustain such catastrophic injuries that they are in danger of bleeding to death and who suffer a heart attack shortly before they can be treated. The patients, who are often victims of stabbings or shootings, would normally have less than a 5% chance of survival.

Samuel Tisherman, at the University of Maryland, in Baltimore, described the trial at a recent symposium held by the New York Academy of Sciences. He said at least one patient had had the procedure but did not elaborate on whether that patient or any others had survived. The first time the team performed the process was “a little surreal”, he told New Scientist magazine.

Rapid cooling of trauma victims is designed to reduce brain activity to a near standstill and to slow the patient’s physiology enough to give surgeons precious extra minutes, perhaps more than an hour, to operate. Once the patient’s injuries have been attended to, they are warmed up and resuscitated.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/nov/20/humans-put-into-suspended-animation-for-first-time?CMP=soc_567&fbclid=IwAR2bEXlFzM08Wn2_H1uP-vy9SFwT3SQ_0Mdrdj-L2zJLjg-BTSuw13Oe1m4

‘…rapidly cooling the brain to less than 10C by replacing the patient’s blood with ice-cold saline solution…’

Isn’t that the initiation ceremony for joining the Young Liberals?

Ooh, a nice new fred…

“Therapeutic hypothermia, recently termed target temperature management (TTM), is the cornerstone of neuroprotective strategy. Dating to the pioneer works of Fay, nearly 75 years of basic and clinical evidence support its therapeutic value. Although hypothermia decreases the metabolic rate to restore the supply and demand of O2, it has other tissue-specific effects, such as decreasing excitotoxicity, limiting inflammation, preventing ATP depletion, reducing free radical production and also intracellular calcium overload to avoid apoptosis. Currently, mild hypothermia (33°C) has become a standard in post-resuscitative care and perinatal asphyxia. However, evidence indicates that hypothermia could be useful in neurologic injuries, such as stroke, subarachnoid hemorrhage and traumatic brain injury. “

SJTREM

SJTREM also sponsor my favourite podcast.

:-)

buffy said:

Rule 303 said:

buffy said:

I have heard that story. That would be a combination of holding breath (what age do they lose that reflex?) and cooling. If, as you say, it is actually true.

I understand that whether there’s water in the lungs matters later – Asphyxiation is asphyxiation. Very cold water in the lungs would increase rate of cooling at brain, where size of brain would be the protective mechanisms for a tiny baby.

We should know more about this – 1,000 people die and 9,000 suffer brain injury from drowning every day, around the world.

Ooh, it lasts longer than I thought it would

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12022304

Yeah, but we also breath in maximally on immersion in water colder than 4°. I don’t know whether babies do it – They wont let me run the experiment.

“A protective effect of cold water for drowning victims was not found; estimated submersion duration was the most powerful predictor of outcome. Recommendations for initiation of rescue and resuscitation efforts should be revised to reflect the very low likelihood of good outcome following submersion greater than 10 min.”

Yeah, but the world breath-holding record is 24 minutes 3 seconds, soooo….

(from the link Buffy gave earlier)

I like the idea of ice-cold saline. Actually, I’m surprised that this technique hasn’t been used many times before? Isn’t it sort of obvious?

The process is too slow for cryonics, at colder temperatures the ice crystals forming would cause huge damage to cellular tissues, which is why for cryonics a highly toxic crystal-suppressor mixture is injected at low temperature. Where a balance is attempted between the toxicity of the antifreeze and the deadliness of the ice crystals.

Rule 303 said:

buffy said:

Rule 303 said:

I understand that whether there’s water in the lungs matters later – Asphyxiation is asphyxiation. Very cold water in the lungs would increase rate of cooling at brain, where size of brain would be the protective mechanisms for a tiny baby.

We should know more about this – 1,000 people die and 9,000 suffer brain injury from drowning every day, around the world.

Ooh, it lasts longer than I thought it would

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12022304

Yeah, but we also breath in maximally on immersion in water colder than 4°. I don’t know whether babies do it – They wont let me run the experiment.

Is that this experiment? I wonder which murderer first discovered that it isn’t easy to drown newborn babies?