New study data show reduced intracranial pressure

Results from a European clinical trial comparing therapeutic hypothermia to standard treatment for patients with elevated intracranial pressure (ICP) as a result of severe traumatic brain injury demonstrate a significant mean decrease in ICP with body cooling to 32-35oC, which did not occur in the absence of therapeutic hypothermia. The study design and preliminary data are reported in Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management.

Liam Flynn, BMBS, Jonathan Rhodes, MBChB, PhD, and Peter Andrews, MBChB, MD, University of Edinburgh and Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, UK, use a strategy of lowering the body temperature to affect increases in pressure and blood flow in and around the brain that cause much of the damage associated with traumatic brain injury. Among the patients with increased ICP in this study, who did not respond to initial therapy, a mean reduction in ICP of 4.3 + 1.6 mmHg was recorded at the first hour the target body temperature was reached, and the decrease in pressure continued throughout the 6 hours of hypothermia therapy.

The authors report the results in the article "Therapeutic Hypothermia Reduces Intracranial Pressure and Partial Brain Oxygen Tension in Patients with Severe Traumatic Brain Injury: Preliminary Data from the Eurotherm3235 Trial".

"These preliminary findings from an ongoing clinical trial are important to the field and support the beneficial effects of therapeutic hypothermia on controlling ICP elevations in severe TBI patients," says W. Dalton Dietrich, PhD, Editor-in-Chief and Kinetic Concepts Distinguished Chair in Neurosurgery, Professor of Neurological Surgery, Neurology and Cell Biology, University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine.