Patients to be frozen into state of suspended animation for surgery
Patients are to be placed into a state of suspended animation when they undergo surgery by using a ground breaking technique that freezes their bodies to the point of death.
Surgeons are pioneering a method of inducing extreme hypothermia in trauma patients so that their bodies shut down entirely during major surgery, giving doctors more time to perform operations.
The technique helps to reduce the damage done to the brain and other organs while the patient’s heart is not beating. It also reduces the need for anaesthetic and life support machines.
Researchers are now set to begin the first human trials of the technique, which involves replacing a patient’s blood with a cold solution to rapidly chill body temperatures.
The cold treatment, which is being developed at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and is featured in a BBC Two Horizon documentary, will see patient’s bodies being cooled to as low as 10 degrees C.
The normal human body temperature is 37 degrees C and usually humans quickly die if the core body temperature drops below 22 degrees C.
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