Hypothermia Underutilized in Cardiac Arrest Cases Treated in U.S. Hospitals

Jan. 4, 2012 - PRLog -- Contact: Vicki Cohn, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., (914) 740-2100, ext 2156, vcohn@liebertpub.com

Hypothermia Underutilized in Cardiac Arrest Cases Treated in U.S. Hospitals

New Rochelle, NY – 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. (http://www.liebertpub.com) The article is available at http://www.liebertpub.com/ther

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.” (http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/ther.201...)

“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.

Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management provides a strong multidisciplinary forum to advance the understanding of therapeutic hypothermia. Novel findings from translational preclinical investigations as well as clinical studies and trials are featured in articles, state-of-the-art review articles, provocative roundtable discussions, clinical protocols, and best practices. Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management is the journal of record, published in print and online with open access options.

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Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com) is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Journal of Neurotrauma. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 70 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available at www.liebertpub.com