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New Rochelle, NY,  January 4, 2012 – Therapeutic hypothermia has been proven to reduce mortality and improve neurologic outcomes after a heart attack, yet it was rarely used in a sample of more than 26,000 patients, according to a study published in Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

Therapeutic hyperthermia was used in only 0.35% of cases of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in this study. The authors, Pratik Patel, Sayona John, Rajeev Garg, Richard Temes, Thomas Bleck, and Shyam Prabhakaran, from Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, state that “Continued education, dissemination of evidence-based guidelines to community hospitals, the development of and preferential transport of patients to designated cardiac arrest treatment centers, and enhanced reimbursement may help increase its application in clinical practice.” The article is entitled “Therapeutic Hypothermia After Cardiac Arrest is Underutilized in the United States.”

“This informative study underscores the need to more efficiently target and treat cardiac arrest patients that would benefit from hypothermic therapy. The fact that therapeutic hypothermia is underutilized at U.S. hospitals emphasizes the need to identify and address barriers to this evidence-based therapy,” says W. Dalton Dietrich, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal and Kinetic Concepts Distinguished Chair in Neurosurgery, Professor of Neurological Surgery, Neurology and Cell Biology and Anatomy, University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine.

New Rochelle, NY, July 29, 2011–Intravenous delivery of cold fluids to reduce body temperature quickly after a heart attack and improve neurologic outcomes may not be as effective in children as it is in adults, according to a study reported in Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The article is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/ther

In adults, therapeutic hypothermia to minimize neurological complications caused by cardiac arrest can be achieved by rapidly infusing cold (4oC) intravenous fluid. However, this might not be the optimal approach in children. Alexis Topjian, Michael Hamid, Larissa Hutchins, and Vinay Nadkarni, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, studied the effect of the infusion rate on the temperature of the cold IV fluid in three simulated pediatric patients of different weights. They describe the study design and their results in the article entitled, “Can a Cold (4oC) IV Fluid Bolus to Induce Therapeutic Hypothermia Really Deliver 4oC to Children?”

“This is an important and timely contribution because it reinforces the point that children are not just small people but require specialized treatment strategies to target pediatric CNS injury,” says Editor-in-Chief W. Dalton Dietrich, PhD, Kinetic Concepts Distinguished Chair in Neurosurgery, Professor of Neurological Surgery, Neurology and Cell Biology and Anatomy, University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine.

New Rochelle, NY, April 6, 2011 – The successful use and evaluation of therapeutic hypothermia to improve survival and reduce the risk of neurological consequences following an out-of-hospital heart attack are explored in the premier issue of Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management, a new quarterly peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

According to the review article on “The Use of Hypothermia Therapy in Cardiac Arrest Survivors,” therapeutic hypothermia appears to reduce the risk of brain injury in the approximately 400,000 people who suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in the U.S. each year. The authors, Sanjeev Nair and Justin Lundbye, Hartford Hospital (CT) and University of Connecticut School of Medicine, in Farmington, discuss when therapeutic hypothermia should and should not be used, various methods of reducing body temperature, and the different phases of hypothermia.