ltheghost
Payin Debts.... N40
Suspended-animation trials to begin on humans - CNET
This month, the world's first attempts at placing humans in suspended animation using a new technique will take place at the UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania -- not for space travel, but to save lives.
The technique will initially be used on 10 patients whose wounds would otherwise be lethal in an attempt to buy the surgeons some time. It works, as suggested by science fiction, by cooling the body -- but not by applying an external temperature change.
Instead, a team of surgeons will remove all of the patient's blood, replacing it with a cold saline solution. This will cool the body, slowing its functions to a halt and reducing the need for oxygen.
The technique, therefore, will only be used as an emergency measure on patients who have suffered cardiac arrest after severe traumatic injury, with their chest cavity open and having lost at least half their blood already -- injuries that see only a seven percent survival rate. The survival rate of these patients will then be measured against a control group that has not received the treatment before further testing can begin.
It's not science fiction quite yet -- a human body can only be safely placed under these conditions for a maximum of a few hours -- but even if it raises the survival rate just the little, it will be a massive step forward.
Pretty cool if it works brehs. I find this stuff interesting as hell.
This month, the world's first attempts at placing humans in suspended animation using a new technique will take place at the UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania -- not for space travel, but to save lives.
The technique will initially be used on 10 patients whose wounds would otherwise be lethal in an attempt to buy the surgeons some time. It works, as suggested by science fiction, by cooling the body -- but not by applying an external temperature change.
Instead, a team of surgeons will remove all of the patient's blood, replacing it with a cold saline solution. This will cool the body, slowing its functions to a halt and reducing the need for oxygen.
The technique, therefore, will only be used as an emergency measure on patients who have suffered cardiac arrest after severe traumatic injury, with their chest cavity open and having lost at least half their blood already -- injuries that see only a seven percent survival rate. The survival rate of these patients will then be measured against a control group that has not received the treatment before further testing can begin.
It's not science fiction quite yet -- a human body can only be safely placed under these conditions for a maximum of a few hours -- but even if it raises the survival rate just the little, it will be a massive step forward.
Pretty cool if it works brehs. I find this stuff interesting as hell.
