Treatment of exertional heat injuries with portable body cooling unit in a mass endurance event.

摘要

Exertional heat illness (EHI) occurs mainly in active individuals pushed to their physical limits, resulting in overheating from generation of heat faster than what the body can dissipate [1]. The resultant dysfunction at cellular and organ level leads to a spectrum of diseases from minor heat cramps through heat exhaustion to life-threatening heatstroke [2]. In mass endurance events, runners with heat illnesses are typically treated with ice packs or cooled with ice water in the prehospital setting [3], before the more definitive methods of cooling by immersion in ice water [4] or body cooling units (BCUs) [5] in the hospitals. We report the use of a field-deployed BCU in cooling hyperthermic patients from a half marathon (21-km run).