Photo Gallery The Big Chill
Doctors have known for centuries that controlled cooling can save certain patients from death or brain damage -- during heart operations, after strokes, even after spinal injuries. German surgeons have found success in cooling some at-risk patients to alarmingly low temperatures.
The benefits of cold body temperatures have been known for centuries: They can protect a brain from the permanent effects of oxygen depletion, especially when circulation slows. But the habit of cooling patients in surgery faded in Western hospitals after the invention of the heart-lung machine, pictured, which oxygenates blood and maintains circulation.
Foto: Rolf Vennenbernd/ picture-alliance/ dpa
Cooling a patient has its own risks -- like tissue damage -- but it can prevent the full range of side effects from oxygen deficiency. No single drug has the same full therapeutic effect.
Foto: Jan-Peter Kasper/ picture-alliance/ dpa
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