Cardiac arrest and therapeutic hypothermia.

Therapeutic hypothermia for patients who remain comatose following resuscitation from a cardiac arrest improves both survival and neurologic outcomes. Although this therapy has been incorporated into the guidelines for routine post-resuscitation care and has been in clinical use for over a decade, significant questions and controversies remain. In this review, we discuss these questions in the context of the current evidence and provide a practical framework to help guide clinicians.