[The progress of therapeutic hypothermia for patients with comatose survivors of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest this century].

: Two randomized clinical trials were reported using mild therapeutic hypothermia following cardiac arrest in the 2002. One is the multicenter randomized clinical trial projected by The Hypothermia after Cardiac Arrest Study Group. The other one was performed by four centers in Australia. Two trials significantly showed better outcome in the hypothermia group compared with the normothermia group. There were some differences between Europe study and Australia study, although their outcome was doing very well. We will discuss cooling techniques (blanket or ice pack or cold saline intravenously), selection of patients (ventricular fibrillation or pulseless electrical activity or asystole), timing of cooling (as possible as earlier or within 3 hours or 6 hours) and monitoring in the hypothermia group in future. In addition, clinicians including cardiologists, intensivists, emergency physicians and neurologists, should work together to practice protocols for mild hypothermia treatment.