Comparison of Two Surface Cooling Devices for Temperature Management in a Neurocritical Care Unit

Fever increases mortality and morbidity and length of stay in neurocritically ill patients. Various methods are used in the neuroscience intensive care unit (NSICU) to control fever. Two such methods involve the Arctic Sun hydrogel wraps and the Gaymar cooling wraps. The purpose of our study was to compare these two methods in neurocritical care patients who had temperature >37.5°C for more than three consecutive hours and that was refractory to standard treatments. Data of patients requiring cooling wraps for treatment of hyperthermia at an NSICU at an academic, tertiary referral center were retrospectively reviewed. The average temperature before cooling was 38.5°C ± 0.38°C and 38.4°C ± 0.99°C for the Gaymar and Arctic Sun groups, respectively (p = 0.89). The Gaymar group took on average 16 ± 21.9 hours to reach goal temperature, whereas the Arctic Sun group took 2.22 ± 1.39 hours (p = 0.08). The average time outside of the target temperature was 57.0 ± 58.0 hours in the Gaymar group compared with 13.7 ± 17.1 hours in the Arctic Sun group (p = 0.04). Average duration of using the cooling wraps was similar between the two groups; 81.8% of patients had rebound hyperthermia in the Gaymar group compared with 20% in the Arctic Sun group (p = 0.0089). The Arctic Sun group had a nonsignificant increased incidence of shivering compared with the Gaymar group (40% vs. 18.18%, p = 0.36). We found that Arctic Sun surface cooling device was more efficient in attaining the target temperature, had less incidence of rebound hyperthermia, and was able to maintain normothermia better than Gaymar cooling wraps. The incidence of shivering tended to be more common in the Arctic Sun group.