Therapeutic hypothermia in the intensive cardiac care unit.Therapeutic hypothermia has demonstrated to improve both survival and neurological outcome in patients who experienced an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.  Although therapeutic hypothermia is often begun before hospital arrival, the optimal time to start cooling is still a matter of debate.  Furthermore, different methods are available to low body temperature, but no direct comparisons are available to establish which device performs better than others, and a combination of external and endovascular cooling is usually preferred.  The present review is aimed at summarizing the available evidence supporting the use in clinical practice of mild hypothermia in comatose survivors from cardiac arrest and at evaluating its adverse events and their treatment.
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