News | April 28, 2008

Science Channel Features InnerCool’s Endovascular Cooling During Brain Surgery

April 29, 2008 - Cardium Therapeutics and its operating unit InnerCool Therapies said today that InnerCool’s endovascular Celsius Control System was featured on Science Channel’s “Cool Stuff: How It Works.”

The segment (episode 5) aired April 25, 2008, and is scheduled to be rebroadcast at 8:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. (ET/PT) on Friday, May 9.

The episode featured InnerCool’s Celsius Control endovascular system during a six-hour brain surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, CA, during the surgery Dr. Gary K. Steinberg and his surgical team cooled a patient.

“Although the precise mechanism of mild cooling’s protective effect on the brain is unclear, it appears to blunt the detrimental cascade of events at the cellular level that occurs during the minutes, hours, and sometimes even days after an adverse neurologic event,” said Dr. Steinberg, Lacroute-Hearst professor and chairman of the Standford Department of Neurosurgery. “Hypothermia therapy is increasingly being used for neuroprotection during neurovascular surgery to improve neurologic function and decrease disability.”

Dr. Steinberg has been using therapeutic hypothermia in the clinic since 1991. He has used it in more than 2,500 patients with cerebrovascular problems to minimize the high risk of stroke and ischemic brain damage.

Patient temperature modulation is a rapidly-advancing field focused on preserving ischemic tissue and improving patient outcomes following major medical events such as stroke, cardiac arrest and heart attack, as well as in the management of patients experiencing trauma or fever. Temperature modulation is intended to cool patients in order to reduce cell death and damage caused by ischemic events in which blood flow to critical organs such as the heart or brain is restricted, and to prevent or reduce associated injuries such as adverse neurologic outcomes.

InnerCool’s endovascular approach to patient temperature modulation is based on a single-use, flexible, metallic catheter and a cooling system that allows for rapid and controlled cooling and rewarming. It integrates a slim catheter profile, a highly efficient flexible metallic thermal transfer element, a built-in temperature monitoring sensor, and a programmable console capable of rapidly inducing, maintaining and reversing therapeutic cooling.

InnerCool’s next generation RapidBlue system for high-performance endovascular temperature modulation is expected to receive FDA clearance in the second quarter 2008. The RapidBlue system includes a programmable console with an enhanced user interface and a catheter designed to quickly modulate patient temperature in association with surgery or other medical procedures.

For more information: www.t-r-co.com, http://science.discovery.com/tv-schedules/series.html


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