The use of systemic hypothermia in the control of massive gastrointestinal hemorrhage

The application of cold to lower the temperature of the entire body was introduced by Currie [I ] in 1797. Since the 1940's, general hypothermia has been advocated for use in many varied therapeutic situations. In 1961 Gowen and Lindenmuth [2] introduced prolonged total body hypothermia for the manage° ment of gastrointestinal hemorrhage in three patients. This report followed by three years the work of Wan~ensteen and his associates [3] in local gastric hypothermia for massive hematemesis. Our experience [~] with local gastric cooling in ten cases indicated tha t although frequently bleeding was controlled, certain aspects of the ~echnics limited its applicability. Recently, additional reports [5-7] have emphasized the usefulness of total body hypothermia for upper gastrointestinal bleeding, We have employed general hypothermia in a grdup of critically ill patients with massive gastrointestinal hemorrhage who were not considered candidates for operative therap:¢.