ask-mark.com

MSNBC has an article about research being done by Dr. Lance Becker at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Resuscitation Science. What Dr. Becker’s research is showing is that even an hour after clinical death, the oxygen deprived heart cells of a heart attack patient are still alive. His research also shows that it is the reperfusion, the resumption of oxygen supply to the cells, that actually results in cell death. When oxygen is resupplied to previously deprived cells, apoptosis occurs. It appears as though the cells cannot distinguish between the cells being replenished with oxygen and cells that should be programmatically killed, like cancer cells. Rather than helping, the return of oxygen to the cells actually causes more harm.

Dr. Becker’s research continues to study this process, and how to best revive a patient. His suggestion is to slow the uptake of oxygen, rather than increase it. Among the possible solutions for slowing oxygen uptake is putting patients on a heart-lung bypass machine to continue circulation until the heart can be safely restarted. Dr. Becker has also developed a slurry solution of ice and salt that can be injected into the bloodstream to induce hypothermia. Research has shown that lowering the body temperature to 33°C (91.4°F) can slow the chemical reactions started by reperfusion.

Overall, the research is very interesting and I am excited to see what it turns up. Of course, I also wonder what this means for organ donation with heart attack patients. I don’t even know if organs from a heart attack patient are generally accepted for organ donation, or if the lifestyle that led up to the heart attack makes these organs undesirable for donation. I already wonder how and where doctors draw the line when it comes to continuing to try to save a patient and calling a patient’s time of death to ensure that the organs are still viable for donation. Maybe that’s just what happens on TV?

Note: I had a much better write-up for this article, until my browser decided to stop loading pages and it prevented me from copying to the clipboard what I had already written.