Humans placed in suspended animation for the first time

[Stevicus]

Exclusive: Humans placed in suspended animation for the first time

Doctors have placed humans in suspended animation for the first time, as part of a trial in the US that aims to make it possible to fix traumatic injuries that would otherwise cause death.

Samuel Tisherman, at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, told New Scientist that his team of medics had placed at least one patient in suspended animation, calling it “a little surreal” when they first did it. He wouldn’t reveal how many people had survived as a result.

The technique, officially called emergency preservation and resuscitation (EPR), is being carried out on people who arrive at the University of Maryland Medical Centre in Baltimore with an acute trauma – such as a gunshot or stab wound – and have had a cardiac arrest. Their heart will have stopped beating and they will have lost more than half their blood. There are only minutes to operate, with a less than 5 per cent chance that they would normally survive.

EPR involves rapidly cooling a person to around 10 to 15°C by replacing all of their blood with ice-cold saline. The patient’s brain activity almost completely stops. They are then disconnected from the cooling system and their body – which would otherwise be classified as dead – is moved to the operating theatre.

A surgical team then has 2 hours to fix the person’s injuries before they are warmed up and their heart restarted. Tisherman says he hopes to be able to announce the full results of the trial by the end of 2020.

It sounds hopeful, but as quoted in the article, it does seem rather surreal.

Tisherman’s interest in trauma research was ignited by an early incident in his career in which a young man was stabbed in the heart after an altercation over bowling shoes. “He was a healthy young man just minutes before, then suddenly he was dead. We could have saved him if we’d had enough time,” he says. This led him to start investigating ways in which cooling might allow surgeons more time to do their job.

Animal studies showed that pigs with acute trauma could be cooled for 3 hours, stitched up and resuscitated. “We felt it was time to take it to our patients,” says Tisherman. “Now we are doing it and we are learning a lot as we move forward with the trial. Once we can prove it works here, we can expand the utility of this technique to help patients survive that otherwise would not.”

So, it gives doctors more time to save a patient who is a victim of acute trauma. But they don't know how long a person can remain in a state of suspended animation. There are also risks of injury.

In fact, how long you can extend the time in which someone is in suspended animation isn’t clear. When a person’s cells are warmed up, they can experience reperfusion injuries, in which a series of chemical reactions damage the cell – and the longer they are without oxygen, the more damage occurs.

It may be possible to give people a cocktail of drugs to help minimise these injuries and extend the time in which they are suspended, says Tisherman, “but we haven’t identified all the causes of reperfusion injuries yet”.

“I want to make clear that we’re not trying to send people off to Saturn,” he says. “We’re trying to buy ourselves more time to save lives.”

I was thinking that very thing, that this would be perfect for those of us who want to go to Saturn. But I guess they're not doing that.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

That is amazing and wonderful, and if the trials are good it's going to be a major medical breakthrough,perhaps the biggest since penicillin.

 

[Heyo]

Anyone else seen "Flatliners"?

The possibility of humans entering into a state of suspended animation was known for quite some time. As early as the civil war in the US doctors witnessed patients with heavy trauma go into multiple organ failure and their bodies cooling down but could be saved occasionally (but often with brain damage).
Patients who got rapidly cooled (e.g. by falling into and drowning in a frozen lake) could be revived in recent year. I read about a Swedish doctor who made a full recovery without brain damage. Her brain was without oxygen for 45 minutes. Under normal circumstances brain damage occurs after just a few minutes.
As the article states, the main problem is warming the body up. It seems that it has to be done from the inside out. If peripheral tissue gets warmed before heart, lungs and kidneys function, cells will die and spread toxins throughout the body. In that case warming the body will kill the person.
Don't try to warm someone with extreme hypothermia. That's a task for the professionals.

 

[Heyo]

That has some philosophical and maybe judicial implications. If someone is put into suspended animation and can't be resuscitated, when did s/he die?

 

[Shad]

That has some philosophical and maybe judicial implications. If someone is put into suspended animation and can't be resuscitated, when did s/he die?

After the doctors call brain death as resuscitation has a two hour window. After that brain death follows due to lack of blood.

 

[Valjean]

Not "suspended animation," and not the first time. Cooling regimens are used all the time in hospital, and people have been icing injuries...well... since we had ice.

 

[Shad]

Not "suspended animation," and not the first time. Cooling regimens are used all the time in hospital, and people have been icing injuries...well... since we had ice.

Icing an injury is nothing like suspended animation.

 

[Valjean]

Icing an injury is nothing like suspended animation.

Quite true, and neither is this new modality. Certainly not comparable to the sleep pods in sci-fi films or a hibernating woodchuck.

 

[Stevicus]

Quite true, and neither is this new modality. Certainly not comparable to the sleep pods in sci-fi films or a hibernating woodchuck.

They mentioned that in the article, that they're not trying to "send people off to Saturn." They're just using this method to buy extra time to save patients who are victims of acute trauma.

Maybe there were other times this was done and maybe the article is incorrect about it being the first time. I can't really speak to that. But it seems a noteworthy development just the same.

 

[Shad]

Quite true, and neither is this new modality. Certainly not comparable to the sleep pods in sci-fi films or a hibernating woodchuck.

I think this procedure can be used as a point of developed in space travel. It isn't comparable due to the short time limit.

 

[Valjean]

They mentioned that in the article, that they're not trying to "send people off to Saturn." They're just using this method to buy extra time to save patients who are victims of acute trauma.

Maybe there were other times this was done and maybe the article is incorrect about it being the first time. I can't really speak to that. But it seems a noteworthy development just the same.

Good point. The new modality is, indeed, noteworthy, but I see it as just the latest advance in an ongoing medical technology. In my own ER -- a level one trauma center -- we were doing supercooling trials for such things as traumatic brain injuries twenty or more years ago.

 

[Valjean]

I think this procedure can be used as a point of developed in space travel. It isn't comparable due to the short time limit.

We need more research into the metabolism of hibernating ground squirrels, marmots, &c.

 

[Shad]

We need more research into the metabolism of hibernating ground squirrels, marmots, &c.

Sure. However keep in mind we are using the technological route instead of a natural ability.

 

[Valjean]

Sure. However keep in mind we are using the technological route instead of a natural ability.

Once we understand the metabolic processes, though, we can incorporate this knowledge into our technology.
Sometimes silly-sounding research can result in huge medical and technological breakthroughs.

 

[Shad]

Once we understand the metabolic processes, though, we can incorporate this knowledge into our technology.

To a point.

Sometimes silly-sounding research can result in huge medical and technological breakthroughs.

Yup.

 

[Heyo]

Good point. The new modality is, indeed, noteworthy, but I see it as just the latest advance in an ongoing medical technology. In my own ER -- a level one trauma center -- we were doing supercooling trials for such things as traumatic brain injuries twenty or more years ago.

I knew of cooling to around 28° C for e.g. open heart surgery but 10 to 15° is the first time I've heard of (and exchanging all the blood for saline solution).

 

[Revoltingest]

They mentioned that in the article, that they're not trying to "send people off to Saturn." They're just using this method to buy extra time to save patients who are victims of acute trauma.

Maybe there were other times this was done and maybe the article is incorrect about it being the first time. I can't really speak to that. But it seems a noteworthy development just the same.

Is it too soon to talk of sending'm to Uranus instead?
(It's much closer.)

 

[David1967]

I wonder what this could mean for long distance space travel.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Once we understand the metabolic processes, though, we can incorporate this knowledge into our technology.
Sometimes silly-sounding research can result in huge medical and technological breakthroughs.

Valjean, maybe its better if we don't research all of this? Its neat, but imagine if we really could perfectly stop a person's metabolism. This might be used for many unethical pursuits such as to save prison space or to traffic people or to smuggle soldiers. I guess its a derail. Different thread perhaps. We can discuss it if we ever reach that line.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Is it too soon to talk of sending'm to Uranus instead?
(It's much closer.)

Lets send them to Uranus.