BUFFALO GROVE, IL-- Tens of millions of people worldwide, including over 1 million Americans, suffer a cardiac arrest and stroke resulting in brain injury every year. Damage occurs when the body is deprived of oxygen for extended periods of time. The most effective way to combat injury is to use cold therapy, formally called therapeutic hypothermia. Unfortunately, up to 98% of patients needing therapeutic hypothermia don't get it. Why? Ask Sergei Shushunov, MD.
Currently available equipment is either ineffective, too difficult to use, or does not allow for unobstructed access to the patients. For these reasons medical professionals can't or won't use it. Of patients who survive cardiac arrest around 95% never fully return to previous levels of function. Many are left with reduced brain function or in comas, a burden for the patient, families and costing hundreds of millions of dollars in supportive care. Much of this could be prevented if only the equipment available were truly effective, compact, and easy to use.
Although multiple hypothermia systems exist, all have huge drawbacks. They are either bulky, hinder resuscitation efforts, are slow to achieve target temperature, are too difficult to use, or cause unnecessary complications. The market has proliferated with over 10 devices, all of which are frequently collecting dust in hospital corners while patients receive no treatment!
Most cardiac arrests occur outside the hospital where hypothermia equipment is just not available. Upon arrival to an Emergency Room, medical teams are busy stabilizing patients and don't have time to implement hypothermia treatment. By the time a patient can be transferred to Intensive Care Unit the 2-4 hours window of opportunity is long gone.
Shushunov, a pediatric intensive care expert, realized that the problem was due to equipment limitations and devised a simple and elegant solution. Every patient suffering from cardiac arrest or stroke is temporarily placed on a mechanical ventilator. He figured it made sense to utilize the same ventilator to induce hypothermia by administering very cold air to the lungs. An adult person's lungs have a surface area of 1000 square feet, making them a powerful heat exchanger. Using cold air through the ventilator is all that is necessary to rapidly induce therapeutic hypothermia.
Shushunov, with the assistance of The University of Kansas Department of Engineering, has designed and built a prototype of such a device. Initiation of therapeutic hypothermia can be started in pre-hospital settings, even in the ambulance, and continued through the Emergency Room or Intensive Care Unit using the same device without interruptions or hindering other life supporting interventions.
"I believe this new device will revolutionize how therapeutic hypothermia is administered and will completely change the temperature management device market," said Shushunov. "From the battlefield to the highest level of care hospital there will no longer be any excuse for not offering this lifesaving treatment."
SOURCE: Sergei Shushunov, MD, PR Newswire