X-Message-Number: 29832
From: "Basie" <>
Subject:  MDs use experimental cooling 
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:40:00 -0400

 MDs use experimental cooling

Doctors are following the playbook in treating Buffalo Bills football player 
Kevin Everett's severe spinal cord injury except in one notable regard: 
pumping icy cold saline into his veins to try to prevent further damage.
The program is among several in the United States that has led research into 
moderate hypothermia, or cooling the body a few degrees to try to limit 
swelling, inflammation and the cascade of events and chemicals that cause 
further damage after an initial neurological injury.
 Doctors say Everett received the experimental cooling therapy in the 
ambulance, even before X-rays and other tests could show the extent of his 
injury and the treatment he would need.
The goal of the treatment is "to cool the tissue a few degrees to reduce its 
need for oxygen and to reduce its metabolic rate" and limit secondary damage 
from chemicals the body releases after the initial injury, said Dr. Elad 
Levy, a University of Buffalo neurosurgeon who treated Everett.
On Monday, as Everett's temperature began to rise, doctors decided to try 
cooling his body again, using a slightly different system. This time, a 
hollow tube called a catheter was inserted into the femoral vein in the leg 
near the groin. Cold saline was circulated inside the catheter, indirectly 
cooling the blood as it flowed through the vein.
"We did this here at the University of Pittsburgh in the 70s," but with a 
different method of threading a catheter directly over the spinal cord, 
Maroon said. The treatment had to be done within three hours of injury to 
have any benefit and was extremely cumbersome, he said. For that and other 
reasons, it was largely abandoned until recently, when doctors have resumed 
testing it through different cooling methods for stroke and brain injury 
patients.
Other aspects of Everett's care are more routine.
He received large intravenous doses of methylprednisolone, a steroid to 
limit inflammation and swelling, and had decompression surgery to relieve 
pressure on his spinal cord.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070913/ap_on_he_me/everett_injury;_ylt=AmXC7hmSPaxb.L5m5FQPKj6s0NUE

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