Doctors are claiming success with suspended animation techniques aimed at keeping people in a low-temperature state while surgeons repair their injuries.
In tests, US researchers have dropped the temperature of injured pigs from 37°C to 10°C before operating on them and then reviving them.
According to New Scientist , the doctors are now applying for permission to test the procedure on casualty patients without a pulse who have lost large amounts of blood.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports :
A surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Hasan Alam…anaesthetises the animal, then cuts a major vein and artery in its abdomen to simulate multiple gunshots to a person’s chest and abdomen.
As the pig rapidly loses about half its blood and enters a state of shock, Dr Alam drains its blood and stores it before pumping chilled organ preservation fluid into its system.
The animal’s body temperature falls to about 10C until it is in a state of "profound hypothermia" and has no pulse and no electrical activity in its brain.
But after the blood stored earlier is warmed and pumped back into the pig’s body its heart starts beating again and it comes back to life.
