Study: Device Helps Maintain Normothermia for More than Six Hours

An article published in Case Reports in Anesthesiology has demonstrated the successful use of Advanced Cooling Therapy (ACT)’s Esophageal Cooling Device (ECD) in managing the temperature of patients with extreme burn injuries.  The article, Use of an esophageal heat exchanger to maintain core temperature during burn excisions and to attenuate pyrexia on the burns intensive care unit, by David Williams, MD, FRCA, Gordon Leslie, MD, FRCA, Dimitrios Kyriazis, et al., reviewed the use of the ECD for both warming and cooling patients in the burn unit.

The device was used in patients with full thickness burns of 51 percent, 49 percent and 45 percent body surface area to prevent hypothermia during surgery.

Using the ECD, clinicians were able to maintain normothermia for more than six hours. Patient core temperature was maintained at 37°C (98.6°F), and it was possible to reduce ambient temperature in the operating room to 26°C (78.8°F) to increase comfort levels for the operating team.

Subsequently, clinicians were able to use the ECD to control hyperthermia in one of the patients who developed an infection-related fever of 40°C (104°F) which was unresponsive to conventional cooling strategies.

“The device is easy to use, and maintains core temperature within normal range under challenging conditions, while being less invasive than traditional intravascular methods,” commented senior author Dr. John Dingley with the Welsh Centre for Burns, Morriston Hospital, UK. “We were able to reduce ambient temperature to a level that was more comfortable for the operating team, while accomplishing more extensive and prolonged surgical procedures without being limited by patient temperature drop.  This may reduce patient inconvenience and improve the efficiency of care.”  

The ECD is designed to modulate and control patient temperature when clinically indicated through a single use, fully-enclosed triple lumen system that is inserted into the esophagus.  Two lumens attach to existing temperature modulation equipment while a third lumen simultaneously allows gastric decompression and drainage.  The ECD can be rapidly inserted by most trained health care professionals, in similar fashion to a standard gastric tube, and can be used to control patient temperature in the operating room, recovery room, emergency room, or ICU. 

No conflicts of interest were reported by the authors of this study.