The End of Therapeutic Hypothermia?  

GAME CHANGER!

HOT OF THE PRESS: this new article in NEJM, the Targeted Temperature Management (TTM) trial, that I came across initially courtesy of @CHsu1012 (and then from just about every FOAM resource on the planet due to the significance of these findings) found no benefit of cooling to 33 degrees v 36 degrees. That’s right – no benefit!

One of the criticisms of the earlier studies was that they failed to properly control the temperature in the control group such that some/all of the benefit seen from hypothermia may have simply been due to some of the control group patients experiencing hyperthermia.

This study was well conducted and large (939 patients) and found that if you merely pay close attention to temperature control and keep temperature around 36 degrees … then well, that’s all you need to do.

The Intensive Care Network have a great summary of the trial, as do scancrit.

Emcrit have released a quick 5 minute interview with the author of the NEJM editorial that accompanied the TTM trial which is worth listening to.

The TTM trial  is quite simply a PRACTICE CHANGER!

Needless to say, don’t buy any shares in companies that make therapeutic cooling devices!