Prehospital surface cooling is safe and can reduce time to target temperature after cardiac arrest

摘要

Purpose: Mild therapeutic hypothermia proved to be beneficial when induced after cardiac arrest in humans. Prehospital cooling with i.v. fluids was associated with adverse side effects. Our primary objective was to compare time to target temperature of out-of hospital cardiac arrest patients cooled non-invasively either in the prehospital setting vs. the in-hospital (IH) setting, to assess surface-cooling safety profile and long term outcome.