China Focus: Scientists unveil new strategy for cardiac arrest resuscitation

GUANGZHOU, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) — Researchers have developed a new method for cardiac arrest resuscitation, which is expected to improve the success rate of cardiopulmonary resuscitation and have a profound impact on the development of emergency care systems for critical conditions.
Cardiac arrest patients often experience severe brain damage, which is the primary cause of death. Animal studies have shown that within mere seconds of cardiac arrest, the brain’s oxygen supply is depleted, leading to an immediate loss of consciousness.
Previous research suggested that the brain can only tolerate ischemic damage for five to eight minutes, which has contributed to the low resuscitation success rate for cardiac arrest patients.
An international research team led by He Xiaoshun from the first affiliated hospital, Sun Yat-sen University in south China’s Guangdong Province, applied an innovative “ex vivo brain preservation technique” to successfully “revive” an isolated pig brain that had been “dead” for 50 minutes.
In detail, the study used a pig that had already experienced circulatory death as the experimental subject. After separating its brain from its body, the researchers connected the brain to an external life-support system through intubation, creating a system that supports brain resuscitation.
The results showed that the pig’s brain was successfully “revived,” with brain functions restored and vitality maintained.
This system not only includes components for an artificial heart and artificial lungs but also utilizes normothermic blood perfusion technology to preserve a living pig liver, providing fresh, oxygenated and metabolically stable blood circulation to the isolated pig brain.
The study shows that with the support of the ex vivo life support system, the edema of the isolated brain was significantly reduced, and the vitality and microstructure of nerve cells were notably improved, allowing for the restoration and maintenance of electrical brain activity.
The study also highlights the crucial role of the liver in the pathogenesis of post-cardiac arrest brain injury.
The study was recently published as the cover article in the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine. ■