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In a retrospective study at a single U.S. academic hospital, researchers compared time to target temperature and outcomes for 80 patients with nontraumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arrest who received prehospital cooling and 52 patients (historical controls) who received cooling in the emergency department. All patients were transported by a single emergency medical services (EMS) agency between 2007 and 2011. Patients cooled in the prehospital setting received 500 mL to 2 L of cold (4°C) normal saline. The in-hospital cooling protocol was the same for both groups.
Significantly more patients in the prehospital cooling group than the control group received bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (81% vs. 63%) and field use of an automated ext…