Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) involves reducing the body temperature to below normal levels for a prolonged period to minimize the potential damage caused by traumatic or ischemic injury that reduces blood flow to the tissues.
Factors contributing to the initially slow and more recently accelerated implementation of TH in New Jersey hospitals are described by Derek DeLia and colleagues from Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ), University of Alabama at Birmingham, Saint Barnabas Medical Center (Livingston, NJ), and Newark Beth Israel Medical Center (Newark, NJ). The authors discuss the wide variation observed in the criteria for patient selection for TH across hospitals and the impact that variations in TH use can have on patient care in the article "Post-Cardiac Arrest Therapeutic Hypothermia in New Jersey Hospitals: Analysis of Adoption and Implementation."
"This communication is important because it focuses on the need of continued adoption and utilization of therapeutic hypothermia targeting cardiac arrest," 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. "It is hoped that this journal will continue to provide guidance as more hospitals and treating physicians use this beneficial treatment in limiting the devastating consequences of brain injury."
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