Therapeutic Hypothermia

The use of hypothermia for a variety of therapeutic purposes has a long and erratic history. Hypothermia was used for protection and preservation of the heart and entire organism during planned operative ischemia. Attempts were also made to use hypothermia for resuscitation from cardiac arrest and for management of head trauma. Therapeutic Hypothermia will provide a review of the subject, in particular, resuscitative hypothermia and include known mechanisms of action and results from both mechanistic and outcome laboratory studies and clinical trials. Cooling methods and potential side effects of hypothermia will be addressed as well as recommendations for future laboratory and clinical research. This volume will be of interest to both the researcher interested in therapeutic hypothermia as well as the clinician interested in the potential use of therapeutic hypothermia in their patient population.