Automated peritoneal lavage: an extremely rapid and safe way to induce hypothermia in post-resuscitation patients

Aiming at a rapid induction and stable maintenance phase, MTH induced via continuous peritoneal lavage (PL) using Velomedix(R) Inc. automated PL system was evaluated and compared to historical controls in which hypothermia was achieved using cooled saline intravenous infusions and cooled blankets.In sixteen PL patients time to reach core target temperature of 32.5oC was 30 minutes (interquartile range [IQR]: 19-60), which was significantly faster compare to 150 minutes (IQR: 112-240) in controls. The median rate of cooling during the induction phase in the PL group of 4.1oC/hr (IQR: 2.2-8.2) was significantly faster compared to 0.9oC/hr (IQR: 0.5-1.3) in controls. During the 24 hours maintenance phase mean core temperature in the PL patients was 32.38+/-0.18oC (range: 32.03-32.69oC) and in control patients 32.46+/-0.48oC (range: 31.20-33.63oC), indicating more steady temperature control in the PL group compared to controls. Furthermore, the coefficient of variation (VC) for temperature during the maintenance phase was lower in the PL group (VC: 0.5%) compared to the control group (VC: 1.5%). In contrast to 23% of the control patients, none of the PL patients showed overshoot of hypothermia below 31oC during the maintenance phase. Survival and neurological outcome was not different between the two groups. Neither shivering nor complications related to insertion or use of the PL method were observed.Using PL in post CA patients results in rapidly reached target temperature and a very precise maintenance, unprecedented in clinical studies evaluating MTH techniques. This opens the way to investigate the effects on neurological outcome and survival of ultra-rapid cooling compared to standard cooling in controlled trials in various patient groups. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.Gov NCT01016236