Suspended Animation is when the surgeons drain
out your blood then replace it ice-cold saline solution. When they put in the
solution and cools the body’s core to about 50 to 55 degrees.
At normal body temperatures, cells
need regular oxygen supply. When the heart stops, blood no longer carries
oxygen throughout the body, and the brain can only survive for a few
minuets.
At
these reduced temperatures, however, tissue cells need less oxygen because all
chemical reactions slow down. It’s the same principal that has allowed some
people to survive near-drownings in cold water, despite being submerged for
half-hour or more.
The
included hypothermia, or “suspended animation,” process is expected to buy
doctors enough time— at least 45 minutes— to get patients into the operating
room, hook them up to the machines to restart their circulation, warm them up
and then restore their blood. The
groundbreaking process has proven successful in animal trials involving pigs.
Now Tisherman and his researchers plan to carry out a similar trial with
humans, operating 10 patients who get EPR with 10 who don’t. The patients will
have suffered cardiac arrest after a traumatic injury and have little chance of
survival under normal circumstances. The federal
government is watching with interest. Tisherman said the Food and Drug
Administration is overseeing the trial, and the Department of Defense, which
sees potential for treating soldiers in the field, has contributed funding. It
will take several years to complete the trial and crunch the data. Tisherman's
hope is to eventually prove the process works and help it spread to other
trauma centers around the world.
"As trauma
surgeons, we're always fighting against the clock. And we've all seen people
who had injuries we could fix if we just had a few more minutes. It's
heartbreaking when these patients don't make it," he told CNN."We
find it exciting that this might give us a way to save people that we otherwise
can't."
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