Therapeutic hypothermia for cardiovascular collapse and severe respiratory distress after amniotic fluid embolism

Amniotic fluid embolism (AFE) is one of the most catastrophic complications that can occur during pregnancy or in the immediate postpartum period, frequently complicated by profound shock and cardiovascular collapse as well as severe respiratory distress. Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) is now commonly used to improve neurological outcomes after various types of hypoxic injury and is widely used in the treatment of postanoxic injury after cardiac arrest (CA). To our knowledge, no studies have evaluated whether TH could be effectively used in AFE, and its use for this indication has not been described previously. We describe the case of a 32-year-old woman, who developed clinical manifestations of AFE and suffered a CA in the 29th week of her pregnancy. She received prolonged CPR (40 minutes until ROSC) and remained comatose. TH was induced and maintained for a total of 60 hours using an endovascular device, followed by controlled rewarming and maintenance of strict normothermia. The patient survived and was neurologically intact (CPC 1) at 6 months of follow up.