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From Stoppagingme.com, an interesting Mini interview with Dr.Hasam Alam, trauma surgeon in Mass Gen...
" While your specialty is trauma surgery, your research has made international headlines for its closer resemblance to science fiction. Your research team has dutifully worked at cooling exsanguinating pigs to induce a state of "suspended animation" at which time the severed vessels responsible are repaired in a controlled manner. When the pigs are sewn up, warm blood is returned to the body and the pig essentially is revived...
Profound shock from blood loss does not respond well to conventional methods of resuscitation . Even when the underlying cause can be treated and circulation restored, cerebral ischemia lasting 5 minutes or longer invariably results in severe brain damage. Often the underlying injuries are reparable but the patient dies of irreversible shock or severe brain damage. In this setting, strategies to maintain cerebral and cardiac viability long enough to gain control of hemorrhage and restore intra-vascular volume could be life saving. This requires an entirely new approach to the problem, with emphasis on rapid total body preservation, repair of injuries during metabolic arrest, and controlled resuscitation: Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation (EPR). Currently, hypothermia is the most effective method for preserving cellular viability during prolonged periods of ischemia. No clinical studies have been conducted to test the therapeutic benefits of hypothermia in trauma patients. However, well-designed pre-clinical studies clearly support this concept. In exsanguinating cardiac arrest, rapid induction of deep/ profound hypothermia (<15oC) can improve the otherwise dismal outcome. Depending on the degree of hypothermia, good outcomes have been achieved with cardiac arrests of 15, 20, 30
and even 90 minutes in animal models. Furthermore, the period of hypothermia can be safely extended to 180 minutes if blood is replaced with organ preservation fluids and low flow cardiopulmonary bypass is continued (as opposed to no flow) during the arrest period."
" While your specialty is trauma surgery, your research has made international headlines for its closer resemblance to science fiction. Your research team has dutifully worked at cooling exsanguinating pigs to induce a state of "suspended animation" at which time the severed vessels responsible are repaired in a controlled manner. When the pigs are sewn up, warm blood is returned to the body and the pig essentially is revived...
Profound shock from blood loss does not respond well to conventional methods of resuscitation . Even when the underlying cause can be treated and circulation restored, cerebral ischemia lasting 5 minutes or longer invariably results in severe brain damage. Often the underlying injuries are reparable but the patient dies of irreversible shock or severe brain damage. In this setting, strategies to maintain cerebral and cardiac viability long enough to gain control of hemorrhage and restore intra-vascular volume could be life saving. This requires an entirely new approach to the problem, with emphasis on rapid total body preservation, repair of injuries during metabolic arrest, and controlled resuscitation: Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation (EPR). Currently, hypothermia is the most effective method for preserving cellular viability during prolonged periods of ischemia. No clinical studies have been conducted to test the therapeutic benefits of hypothermia in trauma patients. However, well-designed pre-clinical studies clearly support this concept. In exsanguinating cardiac arrest, rapid induction of deep/ profound hypothermia (<15oC) can improve the otherwise dismal outcome. Depending on the degree of hypothermia, good outcomes have been achieved with cardiac arrests of 15, 20, 30
and even 90 minutes in animal models. Furthermore, the period of hypothermia can be safely extended to 180 minutes if blood is replaced with organ preservation fluids and low flow cardiopulmonary bypass is continued (as opposed to no flow) during the arrest period."
