European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 16, 1978, Darmstadt, Hesse Modern Livi wednesday August 16, 1978 the stars and stripes Pago 19 coming to reality by Dave Tabolt associated Pressa Man is injured in a traffic Accident and arrives at the Hospital in a coma. He has suffered a severe blow to the head. Brain activity is abnormal. One consequence of the injury is swell ing of the brain. If the swelling continues the brain will eventually choke off its own blood Supply. Death or permanent brain damage is almost certain. As a last resort doctors administer a few hours for four or five Days the dose is repeated. Artificial life support systems keep the patient s body functioning. The treatment ends and the drug Lears off. Within two Days the Man regains consciousness. The swell ing is gone and while he May have paralysis or Par tial blindness from the blow secondary damage brain swelling has been averted. The scenario in t medical fiction. Doctors have already found they can shut off a human brain truth barbiturates and then restore it with out permanent damage. I Barb Turic acid first synthesized in 1864. Is now used for sleeping pills aesthetics and to control epilepsy the treatment is being applied clinically in Des Perate cases is still in the experimental stage and snot without critics. Some doctors say the use on humans May be premature others believe the Side effects of barbiturates May outweigh the advantages of the if barbiturates restore to Normal life people to would have suffered brain damage they May also allow some to live with permanent brain dam age who otherwise would have died. For my Money the question is not answered to says or. John Michenfelder of the Mayo clinic. For or. Derek Bruce a neurosurgeon at Chil Dren s Hospital in Philadelphia however the treat Merit has proved a Success Bruce says it has Cut the death rate among Young people with serious head in juries from 50 percent to 9 percent. And in san die go it Cut the adult death rate in 60 cases from 50 per cent to 25 percent. We take total control of body and brain and try to keep it at rest says Bruce. It s the concept of suspended animation coming p reality if you like. We re talking about something my three to four years ago was unthinkable. Now or. Peter Safar Heads the University of Pitts urge resuscitation research Institute where Doc re saved a Middle aged Man from brain damage Phe 22 minutes of circulatory arrest. In the past final recovery was thought impossible if the heart snot restarted within five brain although very vulnerable if specially managed has a greater survival potential than we sized in the past says Safar. An Anesther Siologa the Pittsburgh team began work on animal brain jews citation tests in 1970, and in 1974 opened an in pave care unit for monkeys whose brains could be off under on earlier Barbiturate studies with stroke jams or. Edwin Nemoto and or. Achiel Bleyaert the first Monkey trials test the drugs win treating simulated cardiac arrest. The results were startling says Safar. So he Jan trials were begun. Controlled trials at 10 Amer and european medical centers Are now Monkey is being utilized in experiments involving the use of barbiturates in new ways of preventing human brain damage. Tests show the drug s value in simulated cardiac arrest. With some patients getting barbiturates a others getting Standard care. Researchers Are divided Over human experiments. At present they Are being used Only in the extreme cases persons clinically dead. Candidates for brain resuscitation at the University of Pittsburgh and associated medical Cente Saren t breathing and have no pulse in major arte hearts have been restarted but their brains have stopped with no sign of electrical activity they have been comatose at least 10 minutes. In 40 trials Here and in Europe since 1975. H of 22 patients whose hearts slopped for five minutes or longer recovered full brain use some died but not due to brain think on the basis of what we know probably 90 percent or More of such events would have led to permanent brain damage or death with Standard treatments Safar some researchers argue that further Laboratory work is needed. The brain although very vulnerable if specially managed has a greater survival potential than we realized " i n barbiturates administered after cardiac arrest alter the pathology that develops in the brain for my Money the question is not answered says concern is Michenfelder s inability to duplicate i study showing that barbiturates protect brains in dogs when administered before their blood supp is Cut Oft to simulate cardiac arrest for me. This was pretty convincing that in this kind of ischaemia Lack of blood barbiturates were not protective he says other researchers worry that there is no Wayto Weed out patients who would recover on their own without barbiturates. Some now do. If 50 percent of these people Wake up anyway what you May be doing is subjecting that 50 percent to the risks of Barbiturate says or. Har vey Shapiro a professor of Anaesthesiology and neurosurgery at the University of California san Diego. Shapiro and or. Lawrence Marshall have done studies if Barbiturate treatments and Are now trying to duplicate Safar s work. Safar May have something says Shapiro. I just not sure it s yet ready for barbiturates Are the first drug to be used in brain revival researchers say that in time there will be other drugs and other treatments. This whole drive to find ways in which we can switch off the brain and vet have it survive is terribly exciting says Bruce. What we have with people w to understand the dangers is. For the first time the ability to do things that we previously would have said were outside the control of
