Thermodynamic assessment of therapeutic hypothermia techniques for rehabilitation of post-cardiac arrest patients

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csite.2020.100752Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Three methods are compared for inducing hypothermia in post-cardiac arrest patients.

  • Techniques for inducing hypothermia are tested to reduce hypothalamus temperature.

  • Temperature profiles of tissues for internal, external, and combined cooling devices.

  • Simulations for destroyed exergy rate for catheter, cooling pads, and combined method.

Abstract

A comparative study of the three main methods for inducing hypothermia in post-cardiac arrest patients is performed. A human thermal model from the literature is adapted to simulate an average adult during treatment using intravascular cooling, extracorporeal cooling, or a combination of both. The investigation is carried out using the temperature profile that best represents the hypothalamus temperature, and uses the destroyed exergy as a quality index. Each of these techniques is modeled by an equation for the exergy efficiency. As a result of the better stability and control of the patient's core temperature, as well as a reduction of destroyed exergy, the model that makes use of both techniques simultaneously proves to be, from a thermodynamic perspective, superior to the others, although each has advantages and disadvantages.

Keywords

Therapeutic hypothermia
Thermodynamics
Exergy applied to biological tissue
Human thermal model

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