Too cold may not be so cool: spontaneous hypothermia as a marker of poor outcome after cardiac arrest

In a recent issue of Critical Care, den Hartog and colleagues show an association between spontaneous hypothermia, defined by an admission body temperature <35 degrees C,and poor outcome in patients with coma after cardiac arrest (CA) treated with therapeutic hypothermia (TH). Given that TH alters neurological prognostication, studies aiming to identify early markers of injury severity and outcome are welcome, since they may contribute overall to optimize the management of comatose CA patients. This study provides an important message to clinicians involved in post-resuscitation care and raises important questions that need to be taken into account in future studies.