Temperature Management and Modern Post-Cardiac Arrest Care

Modern cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) began in 1960, when clinicians translated observations about external chest compressions from the laboratory to patients.(1) CPR increased survival for patients who had cardiopulmonary collapse outside of the operating room from none to a few. Incremental improvements in the survivorship from CPR occurred as more persons were trained in CPR and as defibrillators became portable and were deployed in more locations. Unfortunately, a cascade of brain injury begins within minutes after cardiac arrest, with the consequence that most patients who had return of cardiac activity did not survive to leave the hospital or did so in ...