ThermoSuit Improves Recovery Odds For Osceola Regional Heart Attack Patients

Giving Patients an Icy Reception

Courtsey:  Orlando Medical News, LYNNE JETER

ThermoSuit body-cooling system shown inflated above.

Kissimmee— Because it could improve their chances of a full recovery, the emergency room staff at Osceola Regional Medical Center doesn’t mind giving heart attack patients an icy reception.

When it was introduced in August, Osceola Regional Medical Center became the first hospital in Florida to use the ThermoSuit® Body Cooling System, the only device using cold water immersion to rapidly lower patient temperature. The rapid cooling system has been proven to improve recovery by minimizing brain and tissue damage for cardiac arrest patients.

“There’s substantial research demonstrating that when a patient survives cardiac arrest, neurological recovery can be significantly improved by decreasing the body temperature and maintaining a reduced temperature for 24 hours,” explained Brian Baxter, MD, medical director of the Emergency Department for Osceola Regional. “The ThermoSuit allows us to advance the standard of care for cardiac arrest patients who have spontaneous return of circulation and to reduce their neurological impairment.”

ThermoSuit is used only with patients who have been successfully resuscitated after their heart has stopped.

Here’s how it works: when a heart attack patient arrives at Osceola Regional, the hospital initiates an ICE Alert. If appropriate, the patient is placed in the ThermoSuit, a non-invasive, portable cooling system that resembles a plastic raft. The FDA-approved device drops the body’s core temperature to between 32 and 34 degrees Celsius in roughly 20 minutes. When cooled, vital organs operate more slowly and require less oxygen, reducing the potential for permanent damage.

Once inside the suit, the patient is covered with a sheet; the system continuously pumps a thin film of ice around the patient’s body. Then, “a probe is placed in the patient’s esophagus to measure their core temperature,” said Baxter. “The device stops cooling at a certain temperature to prevent the patient from becoming too hypothermic. We then monitor the patient’s temperature for the next 24 hours as well as all of their other vitals.”

Once cooling is completed, the ThermoSuit is removed and the patient may receive additional treatments, such as angioplasty or stents.

Osceola Regional staff members completed specialized training before the hospital launched the ThermoSuit program. The medical center also collaborated with emergency medical service agencies in Kissimmee, St. Cloud and Osceola County to ensure a smooth transition between emergency transport and Osceola Regional.

“Once a cardiac patient has been resuscitated, we can immediately begin the cooling process,” said Baxter.

Of the other hospitals using other cooling methods for heart attack patients, most employ systems that have drawbacks. For example, external cooling techniques—namely ice packs and cooling blankets—take hours to decrease body temperature. In the meantime, brain cells and neurons are lost, dramatically diminishing a patient’s chances of returning to normal. Also, invasive cooling methods, such as endovascular cooling catheters and cold saline, tend to have complications.

Research has suggested that cooling the temperature of some cardiac arrest patients before coronary reperfusion could result in a significant reduction in the amount of injury the heart sustains.

Since rolling out the ThermoSuit program, feedback from heart attack patients and their families has been overwhelming positive, said Baxter. “Two of the three ThermoSuit patients have had full recovery after cardiac arrest and another is improving,” he said.

ThermoSuit is made by Life Recovery Systems of Waldwick NJ. BusinessWeek reported the price tag of $1,600 for the disposable pump, and $29,000 for the pump itself.

“The ThermoSuit System is the most advanced technology to treat cardiac arrest patients today,” said Paul McMullan, MD, interventional cardiologist at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans, La., which adopted its use last year. “It cools a patient in minutes, not hours like similar technologies currently available, when time is of the essence.”

McMullan pointed to a 50-year-old Ochsner cardiology patient who was pronounced dead after suffering a heart attack in 2008.  He was immediately resuscitated at the scene, suffered another heart attack, and was routed to Ochsner’s ER. After “cooling off” with the ThermoSuit,he recovered and was doing well soon after. His ejection fraction (EF), which was at 5 percent after his cardiac episodes, had returned to 35 percent.

Robert Freedman, MD, of Alexandria, La., invented ThermoSuit, which received a 2009 Medical Design Excellence Award.

“ThermoSuit will become the new standard of care for cardiac arrest patients,” said Baxter. “It fits with Osceola Regional and the Central Florida Cardiac & Vascular Institute.”