Therapeutic hypothermia in drowning induced hypoxic brain injury: a case report

BACKGROUND: Although therapeutic hypothermia for neuroprotection has been in use for over half a century but its use has been controversial in absence of proper guidelines. However for over two decades there has been revived interest in mild therapeutic hypothermia (32 - 34°C) for neuroprotection. CASE: A 17 year-old female tourist was rescued from sea. She received cardio-pulmonary resuscitation for about 16 minutes. But she had sustained significant neurological insult as a result of hypoxic brain injury. Therapeutic hypothermia was added to her regime of neuroprotection in intensive care unit, and her neurological status improved in just 8 hours with full correction of her coma score by day 4.