Background: In the 1960s, Peter Safar et al. postulated the benefit of postcardiac arrest hypothermia after successful cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). However, therapeutic hypothermia postCPR did not become a standard procedure until the first few years of the new millennium. Various noninvasive and invasive cooling methods are available. Generally, more invasive cooling methods are more effective-but also tend to involve more complications. Furthermore, invasive measures need more time and thus may be instituted late in the postCPR process, delaying the cooling efforts in the initial phase. There is ongoing controversy about when best to commence cooling.
Current situation: Recent studies of initial out-of-hospital cooling did not show any benefit for the patients compared to starting cooling in the hospital. The exact target temperature is the subject of multiple ongoing discussions. A recent study showed no disadvantage of cooling to 36 ℃ compared to 33 ℃, which is in the widely accepted standard target temperature range of 32-34 ℃. Nevertheless, cooling to 32-34 ℃ according to the 2010 guidelines is still the accepted standard procedure unless and until new studies generate more evidence. The European Resuscitation Council has given advance notice of a statement on the optimal target temperature in the near future. Finally, large registry studies have demonstrated the benefit of combining postCPR hypothermia with early percutaneous cardiac interventions (PCI) in acute coronary syndromes, which are often a cause of cardiac arrest.
Outlook: Transport of patients after CPR to specialized postcardiac arrest centres with the possibility of acute PCI and cooling, comparable to the transfer of multiple trauma patients to trauma centres, may be beneficial.
Keywords: Body temperature; Cardiopulmonary resuscitation; Hypoxic brain damage; Percutaneous coronary intervention; Treatment outcome.