Prolonged Mild-to-Moderate Hypothermia for Refractory Intracranial Hypertension

Therapeutic hypothermia is an emerging therapy for brain injury and cerebral edema. Hypothermia is known to reduce death and neurologic morbidity in survivors of cardiac arrest from ventricular fibrillation. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) trials studies of short-term hypothermia (24 to 48hours) have had conflicting results. Recent evidence however suggests prolonged hypothermia (48 hours to 14 days) may be beneficial for TBI and select cases of nontraumatic brain injury especially when the duration of cerebral edema and intracranial hypertension is expected to last longer than 24 hours.