INNOVATORS Gold Award - New Orleans City Business

MEDICAL
ThermoSuit System
Ochsner Health System
Key innovation: ThermoSuit System reduces body
temperature in cardiac arrest and heart attack patients
Where they’re based: New Orleans
Top executive: Dr. Christopher White, chairman of
cardiology
Year introduced: 2008
PHOTO BY FRANK AYMAMI
DR. PAUL McMULLAN, an interventional cardiologist at
Ochsner Medical Center, has written the protocol that
resulted in a U.S. Food and Drug Administration clinical
trial that will begin later this year at Ochsner.
The trial’s goal is to prove that the ThermoSuit System,
a special, external, noninvasive cooling system, can reduce
the body temperature of heart attack patients.
Since 2005, the use of hypothermia has been approved
by the FDA and recommended by the American Heart
Association for reducing brain damage for cardiac arrest
patients. Ochsner’s cardiology department has pursued
using hypothermia since the beginning of this year, when it
acquired the ThermoSuit System.
Since published reports in 2002 detailed the benefits of
hypothermia in animal trials, scientists have tried several
methods to cool patients, including intravenous cold
saline, ice packs and even a blanket filled with channels
that pump cold water against the skin. Most of these methods
take so long to cool down a person that the benefits
couldn’t be achieved, McMullan said.
When the ThermoSuit System, developed by Life
Recovery Systems HD of New Jersey, went on the market
last year, it achieved results in 30 minutes or less,
McMullan said.
“ThermoSuit is able to cool the body down much more
quickly than other devices out there, in some cases, as fast
as 20 minutes,” McMullan said. The time the suit takes to
work varies according to person’s size and body temperature.
“It’s like an inflatable kiddie pool, only long and oval, in
the shape of a person,” McMullan said. “The person is
placed in it, and water is circulated by an external pump.”
McMullan believes the same cooling-down treatment
that has proven beneficial to cardiac arrest patients will also
help heart attack patients. Before a national trial can be
approved, the FDA requires proof the ThermoSuit will
actually cool people down and that practitioners can apply
the standard of care to the cooled patients.
“We know we can cool people off, but we have to show
proof we can incorporate hypothermia in our heart attack
standard of care,” McMullan said. “After we prove this, the
next step is to design a randomized, national control trial
with multiple participants.”
“To my knowledge, Ochsner is the only medical center
in the New Orleans area to aggressively use hypothermia
treatment for cardiac arrest patients,” McMullan said. “In
the past six months we have been using it, we have seen
dramatic results in reducing brain damage. Now we want
to prove that heart attack effects can also be lessened with
hypothermia.”•
— Angelle Bergeron
Dr. Paul McMullan, an interventional cardiologist at Ochsner Medical Center, demonstrates the body cooling effects of the ThermoSuit
System on Dr. Rohit Amin.
42A 2008 Innovator of the Year