A Prospective Analysis of the Effect of Therapeutic Hypothermia After Cardiac Arrest

Therapeutic hypothermia has been shown to improve survival and neurologic outcome in patients resuscitated after ventricular fibrillation arrest. Few studies have examined whether therapeutic hypothermia is effective outside the research setting, or with other presenting rhythms. Our institution, a large community teaching hospital, instituted a therapeutic hypothermia protocol in November 2006 for all resuscitated cardiac arrest patients. The investigators seek to determine the mortality rate of our protocol and compare our complication rates with those of previously published studies.