Equipment review: cooling catheters to induce therapeutic hypothermia?

There is growing acceptance within the medical community of induced (therapeutic) hypothermia as a tool to achieve neuroprotection and/or cardioprotection. Although much work remains to be done in identifying those clinical situations in which hypothermia can be effective, there is now sufficient evidence to regard it as a standard of care, at least for some indications such as selected patients with postanoxic encephalopathy. Thus, attention is now partly shifting from assessment of the clinical evidence of efficacy to technical and implementation issues. This review provides a list of criteria by which cooling devices can be judged, and specifically it discusses one of the new cooling devices: the Alsius CoolGard 3000 device and CoolLine catheter. General aspects and advantages/disadvantages of surface versus core cooling are discussed, as are potential side effects, device-specific pros and cons, and cost-effectiveness issues. In addition, the current state of the evidence for use of induced hypothermia for various indications is briefly reviewed.