Therapeutic hypothermia applicable to cardiac surgery

To review the beneficial and adverse effects of therapeutic hypothermia (TH) applicable to cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) in the contexts of various temperature levels and techniques for achieving TH.

Multiple electronic literature searches were performed using PubMed and Google for articles published from June 2012 to December 2014. Relevant terms (e.g. 'hypothermia', 'cardiopulmonary bypass', 'cardiac surgery', 'neuroprotection') were used to search for original articles, letters and reviews without species limitation. Reviews were included despite potential publication bias. References from the studies identified were also searched to find other potentially relevant citations. Abstracts, case reports, conference presentations, editorials and expert opinions were excluded.

Therapeutic hypothermia is an essential measure of neuroprotection during cardiac surgery that may be achieved most effectively by intravascular cooling using hypothermic CPB. For most cardiac surgical procedures, mild to modest (32-36 °C) TH will be sufficient to assure neuroprotection and will avoid most of the adverse effects of hypothermia that occur at lower body core temperatures.