Therapeutic hypothermia and out of hospital cardiac arrest

Lyon and his colleagues from the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh present us with a comprehensive literature review on this subject, with a specific emphasis on the treatment beginning in the prehospital scene or in the ED. Screening a total of 1062 papers for inclusion, their findings can be summarised simply; when it is started as early as is practically feasible, mild therapeutic hypothermia does improve patient outcome, especially in patients whose initial rhythm was ventricular fibrillation.

Many readers may not know that this treatment was first tried 60 years ago. The Edinburgh paper is a first rate review and that is why it is the editor's choice this month (see page 418).

Blood products

Staying in the same city and the same hospital, the ED has combined forces with its local transfusion service and has audited its (the ED's) blood usage over a year. They found three particularly interesting results: those who receive blood tend to be elderly, about 50% of requested products are recycled, …