Inducing hypothermia in trauma patients

The New York Times recently highlighted a Department of Defense-funded clinical trial using Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation (EPR), a procedure in which trauma and cardiac arrest patients have all their blood replaced with freezing saline, inducing hypothermia and, by clinical definition, death.

It is believed that by slowing metabolism, surgeons will have more time to save them. Those eligible for the study are in dire situations in which less than one in ten typically survive. EPR has been used in surgeries on dogs and pigs over the last decade and recent studies as many as 90 percent of animals survived, most without discernible cognitive impairment. It is unclear how this could change in humans with respect to cognition, tissue reperfusion, or other physiological systems.