Overview of Science and Mission
Problem
Sudden Death: What is it?
Sudden death occurs when the flow of blood to vital organs of the body unexpectedly stops due to cardiac arrest.
- Emergency rescuers currently have only about four minutes to resuscitate these patients before it is too late to save the heart and brain.
- Due to this time barrier almost all victims of cardiac arrest, many in the prime of life, die.
Cardiac Arrest:
One Of the Leading Causes Of Death In the World!
In major cities like Chicago and New York, survival rates for victims of sudden death are less than two percent.
Treatment options for cardiac arrest, focusing on restoring blood flow quickly through CPR, have not changed much in over thirty years and as a result there has been little improvement in survival.
A Surprising Discovery Was Made..
Recent research indicates that more cells die in the first minutes after blood flow is restored than die during the time that blood flow is stopped. Research focus needs to be on:
- how quickly we resuscitate (which has previously been the focus of research and treatment) and
- the way we resuscitate.
Using new medications and therapies when blood flow is first restored may be vital to altering the life and death struggle which occurs at the cellular level. This in turn could potentially save the lives of thousands of people each year.
At the ERC, There Is Hope!
Breaking the 4 Minute Barrier
- We believe that it will be possible to break the four-minute barrier for successful resuscitation.
- We have assembled a team of diverse scientists dedicated to improving our understanding of how cardiac arrest affects the body and discovering treatments and therapies which ultimately improve patient outcomes.
Under the Microscope
By examining cells under a microscope during cardiac arrest, ERC scientists discovered that the amount of cell death following ischemia (oxygen deprivation caused when blood flow has ceased) was more closely linked to how blood flow was restored than to the length of ischemia.
Dramatic improvements in cell survival were shown when certain key conditions during the restoration of blood flow were changed. This proved that we need to find better ways to bring cells back from the brink of death.
The ERC also was instrumental in showing that the use of therapeutic hypothermia represents the best currently available intervention for victims of cardiac arrest. Cooling alters several key mechanisms of cell injury and death caused by resuscitation and significantly improves patient outcomes including cardiac and neurological function.
Our current research focuses on exploring and understanding exactly how hypothermia works. The hope is that this will allow us to create alternate treatments that mimic the effects of cooling but are easier to initiate (cooling patients to the correct temperature can be a difficult and slow task).
The advances we strive to make will give emergency care providers valuable additional time to resuscitate victims of sudden death, allowing us to bring more people from the edge of death back to full and productive lives.