A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that emergency body cooling does not improve survival or functional outcomes in children who experience in-hospital cardiac arrest any more than normal temperature control.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham with Children’s of Alabama participated in the 37-center trial evaluating body cooling versus active fever prevention in children after the occurance of cardiac arrest while in-hospital. Compared to normal temperature control, body cooling does not confer benefit with respect to neurologically intact survival or decrease any morbidity or mortality measure.
“Results were similar to the out-of-hospital arm of this trial,” said Jeffrey Alten, M.D., chief of the UAB Section of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine. “This landmark study challenges a therapy that has become the standard of care in many pediatric and cardiac intensive care units.”