Top 10 U.S.hospitals prefer Arctic Sun temperature management system

The number of Arctic Sun(R) users among hospitals ranked top 20 jumped to 90 percent this year from 72 percent last year, Medivance announced today. All top 10 "best hospitals" prefer the ease and safety of its advanced non-invasive method for rapid, controlled temperature reduction followed by slow rewarming.

The potential rewards of therapeutic temperature management -- the satisfaction of seeing critically ill patients return to their previous lives by protecting them from brain damage -- are so great that 90 percent of U.S. hospitals ranked the nation's best by US News and World Report cool patients therapeutically with the Arctic Sun.

"Therapeutic temperature management is here to stay. It gives patients the best chance of full recovery," said Daniel L. Herr, MD, editor of the July 2009 Critical Care Medicine journal supplement on the topic. Washington Hospital Center, where he is Medical Director of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit, ranked among the top 20 heart programs.

"Technological advances in critical care medicine are always aiming at improving outcomes with minimum risk. Such balance is well demonstrated with the institution of temperature modulation (hypothermia) following cardiac arrest as well as other paradigms of acute brain injury," said J. Ricardo Carhuapoma, MD, of the Division of Neurosciences Critical Care at Johns Hopkins Hospital, which ranked top overall and second in neurology.

"The use of Medivance's Arctic Sun has provided the field of Neurosciences Critical Care with a powerful tool to help with the treatment of complex and highly vulnerable patients," he added.

Cooling: effective and cost-effective

Cooling cardiac arrest survivors is as cost effective as other widely accepted treatments and can increase survival, according to a report published in the current issue of the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

"The choice of the Arctic Sun by hospitals ranked best in the nation is in keeping with the three major trends in medicine today -- improving outcomes, avoiding unnecessary complications and reducing healthcare costs," said Robert Kline, Medivance's CEO.

Cooling a standard of care

Since 2005, when the American Heart Association (AHA) issued recommendations and guidelines for inducing mild hypothermia in comatose survivors of cardiac arrest, adoption of therapeutic cooling has been on the rise. A rapidly growing body of medical literature suggests it may also reduce damage resulting from refractory fevers and other critical illnesses such as stroke.

Source: http://www.medivance.com