| Affiliation: | (1) Surgical Resident, Department of Intensive Care and Surgery, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;(2) Senior Consultant in Vascular Surgery, Department of Surgery, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;(3) Chairman of the Vascular Surgery Division, Department of Surgery, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;(4) Chairman of the Intensive Care Department, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;(5) Senior Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine, Department of Intensive Care, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands |
| Abstract: | Therapeutic hypothermia can provide neuroprotection in various situations where global or focal neurological injury has occurred. Hypothermia has been shown to be effective in a large number of animal experiments. In clinical trials, hypothermia has been used in patients with postanoxic injury following cardiopulmonary resuscitation, in traumatic brain injury with high intracranial pressure, in the perioperative setting during various surgical procedures and for various other indications. There is thus evidence that hypothermia can be effective in various situations of neurological injury, although a number of questions remain unanswered. We describe three patients with unusual causes of neurological injury, whose clinical situation was in fundamental aspects analogous to conditions where hypothermia has been shown to be effective. |
