Scientists have long known that a drop in body temperature can minimize damage done to the brain and other cells by oxygen deprivation. Indeed, stories of surprising recoveries after a fall into icy-cold water have tantalized researchers for years. Harnessing this natural preservative power, a Redwood City, CA-based startup, Radiant Medical, has begun clinical trials of a device that lowers body temperature a few crucial degrees in patients suffering from stroke or heart attack, two common causes of oxygen deprivation. Animal studies in the last six years have shown that a drop in body temperature can preserve brain tissue after a stroke, reducing by half the stroke's impact on surrounding tissue. With reduced temperature, cellular metabolism slows down, decreasing the amount of oxygen and other nutrients needed to survive.
Lower temperature can also slow or arrest the cascade of events that lead to cell death.
Shivering actually heats the body, so patients needed to be immobilized and put on a respirator. Often, pneumonia resulted. Radiant says its new device, called SetPoint, reliably cools the body's blood supply without chilling the patient. Wrapped in a warming blanket and given a mild tranquilizer, the patient generally feels warm throughout the procedure. The SetPoint device joins a heat-exchange catheter and cassette with a control unit that regulates the temperature of the sterile saline solution circulating through the cassette and catheter.