Inducing hypothermia to save lives
Starting in April of this year, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC began a study to see if cooling the body of patients with massive bleeding to 50 degrees below normal body temperature could improve the treatment of traumatic injuries. By the conclusion of the trial, 10 patients with gun shot or knife wounds will have had a large tuble placed in their aorta, which will then pump a cooling saline solution through their bodies as it puts them in a kind of suspended animation, hopefully buying doctors enough time to treat the source of the bleeding.
Though, because there will not be time to receive consent from family members, the team behind the research must go through a “exception-from-informed consent process,” in which the public is informed of the trial and has the option to preemptively opt out.
First tested on pigs in 2000, the method showed huge success rates. This will be the first instance of testing the procedure on human beings.
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