Doctors place patient in ‘suspended animation’
Rapid cooling technique to 'buy time' trialled by surgeons on at least one patient near death
Surgeons have placed a patient in suspended animation for the first time, using a technique that cools the brain to below 10°C and replaces the blood supply with ice-cold saline.
Dr Samuel Tisherman, of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, tells New Scientist that his team has put at least one patient in suspended animation.
The technique, called emergency preservation and resuscitation (EPR), is being trialled in patients with:
“The goal of this study is to rapidly cool trauma victims who have suffered cardiac arrest from bleeding with a flush of ice-cold sodium chloride to preserve the patient to enable surgical control of bleeding,” the clinical trial information says.
