Use of Cold Fluids in Postcardiac Arrest Therapeutic Hypothermia: A Safety Analysis

Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) has been part of the standard care of postresuscitation patients for more than a decade. Multiple cooling methods are available, including the administration of cold intravenous (IV) fluids. Although this method is widely used, the safety of administration of large volumes of cold IV fluids has not been clearly demonstrated in the literature, and recent evidence points to potential deleterious effects associated with administration of large IV fluid volumes. We conducted a retrospective cohort study among patients who have been treated with TH after cardiac arrest between November 2011 and November 2013 at a tertiary care hospital in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. The primary outcome was the effect of IV fluid quantity on the 28-day survival rate. We reviewed 29 cases, with a total 28-day surviving rate of 51.7%. After adjusting for confounding variables, 28-day surviving rate was not significantly associated with the amount of fluids administrated (odds ratio = 1.034; confidence interval 95% [0.741-1.464]; p = 0.85). The amount of fluids did not influence the variation of the pulmonary component of the sequential organ failure assessment score between days 1 and 3 (ρ = -0.2, p = 0.34). Despite a small sample of patients, cold IV fluids in TH appear safe in the postcardiac arrest population. These findings should be reproduced in a larger, prospective study.