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Query: UMLS:C0020672 (hypothermia)
 17,327 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The effectiveness of cooling the subendocardial myocardium by five different methods was evaluated in a group of 100 patients. The most effective and consistent method to cool the heart was by total body hypothermia with the heat exchanger in the cardiopulmonary bypass system. Myocardial temperature became equal to vena caval blood temperature after only a one minute lag. The least effective methods of myocardial cooling were those in which a bath of chilled fluid enveloped the outside surface of the heart, with and without aortic cross-clamping. The drop in ventricular septal temperature was so small that topical hypothermia, by itself, may be worthless. Two methods in wich chilled fluid was perfused through the coronary system produced a significant lowering of myocardial temperature. One of these methods employs coronary perfusion with a cold cardioplegic solution in addition to total body hypothermia. It is our current choice for myocardial protection during cross-clamping of the ascending aorta.
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PMID:The effectiveness of topical cardiac hypothermia. 29 2

Though the same symptoms are observed in either hyper- or hypothermia, the etiology may be of four different types: 1) the thermoregulatory mechanisms may be insufficient to adapt to temperature extremes in normal subjects; 2) there may be modifications in peripheral thermoregulatory responses, when the patient compensates for the deficiency or excess by other thermoregulatory responses: the internal temperature is then not distrubed but is not stable; 3) a central lesion causing loss of ability to oppose low temperatures results in hypothermia with coma as soon as the subject is exposed to cold. Loss of ability to oppose heat is not encountered: it is superimposable on the hyperexcitation of the centers that oppose heat; 4) modifications in thermoregulatory responses are mainly evident as fever, a protective defense reaction of the organism wich should be supported rather than fought. The inverse syndrome, if it exists, is difficult to distinguish from the loss of ability to oppose cold. The term of "anapyrexia" is suggested for this latter condition. Whatever the diagnosis, measurment of rectal temperature is insufficient for diagnosis, and thermoregulatory responses have to be evaluated. Therapy for the same symptom may, in fact, be inversed depending on the etiology. It may well be that thermoregulatory function is poorly understood because of its true importance. Possessing no specific organs, it uses the various reactions that have appeared during phytogenetic development to ensure thermal homeostasis. It acts permanently through multiple, independent, regulatory loops allowing many compensatory mechanisms. This underlines, in an indirect manner, the need for the organism to maintain at all costs a constant temperature. This permanent thermal homeostasis implies that only severe disorders result in hyper- or hypothermia, that major disturbances are rapidly fatal, which emphasizes the fundamental importance of thermorgulation.
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PMID:[Pathology of thermoregulation]. 742 83