Cold water immersion: kill or cure?

NEW FINDINGS: What is the topic of this review? This is the first review to look across the broad field of 'cold water immersion' and to determine the threats and benefits associated with it as both a hazard and a treatment. What advances does it highlight? The level of evidence supporting each of the areas reviewed is assessed. Like other environmental constituents, such as pressure, heat and oxygen, cold water can be either good or bad, threat or treatment, depending on circumstance. Given the current increase in the popularly of open cold water swimming, it is timely to review the various human responses to cold water immersion (CWI) and consider the strength of the claims made for the effects of CWI. As a consequence, in this review we look at the history of CWI and examine CWI as a precursor to drowning, cardiac arrest and hypothermia. We also assess its role in prolonged survival underwater, extending exercise time in the heat and treating hyperthermic casualties. More recent uses, such as in the prevention of inflammation and treatment of inflammation-related conditions, are also considered. It is concluded that the evidence base for the different claims made for CWI are varied, and although in most instances there seems to be a credible rationale for the benefits or otherwise of CWI, in some instances the supporting data remain at the level of anecdotal speculation. Clear directions and requirements for future research are indicated by this review.

The place of James Arnott (1797-1883) in the development of local anaesthesia in dentistry.

Dental disease in the form of caries and abscesses has been known since antiquity. Before the advent of anaesthesia, operations upon the mouth were painful. The introduction of general anaesthesia in the form of ether and chloroform seemed to provide a solution, but there was an unacceptable level of mortality. James Arnott introduced local anaesthesia by means of freezing with ice, which he considered safer. He waged a long campaign and his method received recognition and was used in France and the USA. His method stimulated the development of pharmacological anaesthesia.

Cryolipolysis: a historical perspective and current clinical practice.

Dermatologists have long used cold-based therapeutic approaches for a variety of applications. Based on the differences in chemical composition, it is possible to selectively target certain tissues rich with lipid, while sparing the surrounding tissue predominantly containing water. With historical observations of cold-induced panniculitis suggesting the feasibility of this strategy, cryolipolysis has emerged as a new methodology using controlled cooling to selectively target fat. Both preclinical and clinical studies have established the safety and efficacy of cryolipolysis for noninvasive body contouring. This review will focus on the evolution of cryolipolysis from initial case reports of cold-induced panniculitis, to preclinical and clinical studies, and the current clinical practice.

La ciclópea obra del Dr. Charles D. Kelman / The cyclopean work of Dr. Charles D. Kelman

Se hace un recorrido por la vida del Dr. Kelman, el padre de la facoemulsificación, desde su nacimiento en Nueva York hasta su fallecimientoen Boca Ratón, repasando lo más importante de su trayectoria investigadora en el desarrollo de la tecnología quirúrgica ocular; así como su estancia en Europa, donde estudió medicina en Ginebra y su lucha contra el poder oftalmológico establecido desde sus inicios en el tratamiento del desprendimiento de retina por medio de la crio-coagulación, con la extirpación del cristalino por medio de la crio-extracción o su máxima aportación a la oftalmología al desarrollar la facoemulsificación en la cirugía de la catarata (AU)

The article takes us through the life of Dr. Kelman, father of phacoemulsification, since his birth in New York until his death in Boca Raton reviewing the most important of his research career in the development of ocular surgical technology, as well as his pass through Europe where he studied medicine in Geneva and his fight against the established ophthalmologic power. It also reviews his beginning in the treatment of retinal detachment by means of cryocoagulation, with removal of the lens by means of cryoextraction and his maximum contribution to ophthalmology in developing the phacoemulsification cataract surgery (AU)

History, ethics, advantages and limitations of experimental models for hepatic ablation.

Numerous techniques developed in medicine require careful evaluation to determine their indications, limitations and potential side effects prior to their clinical use. At present this generally involves the use of animal models which is undesirable from an ethical standpoint, requires complex and time-consuming authorization, and is very expensive. This process is exemplified in the development of hepatic ablation techniques, starting experiments on explanted livers and progressing to safety and efficacy studies in living animals prior to clinical studies. The two main approaches used are ex vivo isolated non-perfused liver models and in vivo animal models. Ex vivo non perfused models are less expensive, easier to obtain but not suitable to study the heat sink effect or experiments requiring several hours. In vivo animal models closely resemble clinical subjects but often are expensive and have small sample sizes due to ethical guidelines. Isolated perfused ex vivo liver models have been used to study drug toxicity, liver failure, organ transplantation and hepatic ablation and combine advantages of both previous models.

Cryotherapy of the liver: a histological review.

INTRODUCTION: Cryotherapy has been largely used in the past for palliation of unresectable liver tumors, but high local recurrence rates and peculiar systemic complications have determined its progressive abandonment. This review analyzes the histological changes produced to provide the basis for the local recurrences. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A detailed literature search was performed on studies focusing on liver cryotherapy. Included were only those that described the histological characteristics in detail. RESULTS: A total of 22 studies were found, one clinical and the others in-vivo animal studies. Similar to other ablative techniques, cryotherapy produces a lesion which is composed by a central zone of coagulative necrosis surrounded with a transitional inflammatory zone. The lesion's dimensions and morphology are influenced by numerous factors including the probe temperature, diameter, the duration of freezing time, fast cooling rate, slow thawing rate, the number of freezing cycles and the inflow occlusion (Pringle maneuver). The temporal evolution is consistent across studies and leads to a progressive inflammatory invasion of the necrosis with definitive fibrotic substitution. CONCLUSIONS: Lesions obtained after cryotherapy seem similar and behave as those obtained after other techniques of liver ablation. However, controversial areas still exist and include the optimum number of freeze thaw cycles, the place of inflow occlusion, the potential corrupting effects of intra-lesional or proximal blood vessels on ablation morphology. The influence of these factors on the local recurrences are still not fully understood.

Cold as a therapeutic agent.

The use of cold as a therapeutic agent has a long and colorful history. The Edwin Smith Papyrus, the most ancient medical text known, dated 3500 B.C., made numerous references to the use of cold as therapy. Baron de Larrey, a French army surgeon during Napoleon's Russian campaign, packed the limbs in ice prior to amputations to render the procedures painless. In the early twentieth century, a neurosurgeon, Temple Fay, pioneered "human refrigeration" as a treatment for malignancies and head injuries. In 1961, Irving Cooper developed the first closed cryoprobe system and ushered in the modern era of cryogenic surgery with his imperturbable convictions. Fay's early work fell victim to the disruptive sequel of the World War II. The Nazis confiscated his data (presented before the Third International Cancer Congress in 1939) forwarded to Belgium for publication and brutally applied his refrigeration techniques experimentally without any benefit of anesthesia in the concentration camps, especially Dachau. Hypothermia became associated in the public mind with the atrocities exposed at the war trials in Nürnberg. After lying dormant for decades, the interest was rekindled in the late 80s when mild hypothermia was shown to confer dramatic neuroprotection in a number of experimental models of brain injury. With several large multi-center clinical studies currently under way, hypothermia is receiving unprecedented attention from the medical and scientific communities.

History of cryotherapy.

Cryotherapy refers to the use of cold temperature to treat disease and is a mainstay therapeutic modality for a wide variety of skin conditions. This article reviews the early history of development of cryotherapy in dermatology.

Mild hypothermia--a revived countermeasure against ischemic neuronal damages.

Although hypothermia as a means of cerebral protection against and resuscitation from ischemic damage has a history of approximately six decades, extensive studies, both in basic and clinical fields, on the mechanisms, effects and methods of mild hypothermia at temperatures no less than 31 degrees C have started only in the last decade. In experiments on rodents, hypothermia in the postischemic period that is introduced up to several hours after reperfusion and is maintained for one day followed by a slow rewarming, significantly protects hippocampal neurons against damage. The mode of action of hypothermia is apparently non-specific and multi-focal in widely progressing cascade reactions in ischemic cells; namely, suppressing: (1) glutamate surge followed by; (2) intraneuronal calcium mobilization; (3) sustained activation of glutamate receptors; (4) dysfunction of blood brain barrier; (5) proliferation of microglial cells; and (6) production of superoxide anions and nitric oxide. In addition, mild hypothermia modulates processes in ischemic condition at the level of cell nucleus, such as the binding of transcription factor AP-1 to DNA, and ameliorates the depression of protein synthesis. This non-specific and widely affecting manner might explain why hypothermia is superior to any medicine developed. Recent clinical trials of mild hypothermia in various individual institutions have revealed significantly beneficial outcomes in some cases, along with an accumulation of practical knowledge of techniques and treatments. Large scale randomized studies involving multiple institutions as well as exchange of informations and ideas are needed for further development of hypothermia treatment.

History of cryosurgery.

The use of freezing temperatures for the therapeutic destruction of tissue began in England in 1845-51 when James Arnott described the use of iced salt solutions (about-20 degrees C) to freeze advanced cancers in accessible sites, producing reduction in tumor size and amelioration of pain. Improved freezing techniques were possible early in the 1990s when solidified carbon dioxide came into use and later when liquid nitrogen and nitrous oxide became available. Nevertheless, cryotherapy was a minor technique, used only for the accessible lesions of skin and mucosa. With the development of modern cryosurgical apparatus by Cooper in 1961, a resurgence of interest in cryosurgery was initiated and techniques for diverse clinical conditions, including visceral cancer, evolved, After the initial widespread clinical trials matured in the 1970s, some applications of the technique fell into disuse while others became standard treatment. Late in the 1980s, further improvements in apparatus and imaging techniques have permitted increased clinical use in neoplastic disease, including visceral cancer.