Penn Medicine: News Release: The New Science of Saving Lives
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Dr. Becker’s previous contributions to cardiac care include
the development of the
automatic
external defibrillator (AED).
The AED is a device that delivers a shock to restart the heart
of a person in cardiac arrest that can be used by non-medically
trained personnel.
Initially, Dr. Becker’s new research will focus on extending
the five-minute window
associated with successful cardiac arrest resuscitation.
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Dr. Becker’s group will also study the benefits of cooling
cardiac arrest patients. Previous studies have indicated that cooling
a patient immediately after arrest noticeably improves cell death
rates and resuscitation success. Recently, the
American
Heart Association
recommended that every cardiac arrest patient who qualifies should
be cooled.
“We have developed a whole program on why cooling saves
cells,” said Becker. “Immediate cooling cardiac arrest
victims increased their survival by 16%. That’s a very significant
improvement which could mean thousands of lives saved each year
as we get faster and better at cooling patients. Unfortunately,
we don’t know exactly how cooling saves cells, so we will
definitely be doing cellular experiments on the mechanisms of how
cooling works. The one thing we do know from our lab, the best
results require rapid cooling, yet we don’t have a good way
to rapidly cool patients.”
To develop more rapid cooling methods the Center for Resuscitation
Science will continue to develop a novel cold
slurry - a slushy
mixture of salt and ice crystals - that can be injected
intravenously
for rapid internal cooling.
“Our current methods of cooling are far too slow,” said
Becker. “Injecting
bio-compatible cold slurry is the best
way to rapidly drop internal temperature.”
Eventually, the goal is to create a slurry-delivery device that
both medically and non-medically trained people could use on cardiac
arrest patients to keep them cool during transport to a hospital.
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