Cardiovascular consequences of cooling in critical care.

This commentary discusses a paper by Filseth and colleagues in a previous issue of Critical Care. The authors describe the cardiovascular effects of induced hypothermia, focusing particularly on post-hypothermic ventricular function. The findings indicate that the treatment resulted in reduced systolic but unchanged diastolic left ventricular function with compensatory effects on heart rate and systemic vascular resistance. The novel aspects of this study are the registration of ventricular function using sophisticated, load-independent indices in a clinically relevant, large animal model during the entire cooling and re-warming trajectory of hypothermia therapy.