There is no one magic bullet treatment for cardiac arrest. The fundamentals of cellular resuscitation are only now beginning to be understood. Successful treatment will require rapid simultaneous interventions. Drugs need to be tested, dosages determined, combinations explored, technology developed, and results validated. Treating free radical injury that follows ischemia.
Significant evidence suggests that free radicals are produced during ischemia and reperfusion.
These free radicals may be a major contributor to tissue injury. Becker, Vanden Hoek and Schumacker developed a cellular model that has suggested new methods for treatment of these free radicals. They have proposed using multiple antioxidants that work at different metabolic pathways leading to free radical production. A critical action may be to gain control over many different sources of oxidant stress in the cell, including the mitochondria and various oxidases, which can cause oxidative damage due to excessive free radicals. Further work is needed to define the sources of free radical production during restoration of blood flow, and find treatments which turn off free radical production at its source.