2013 Volume 4 Issue 2 Pages 160-163
We report 2 cases of hypothermia treated in which the patients were successfully rewarmed by hemodialysis. Case 1: The patient was a male in the 7th decade of life who was found lying on the floor at his workplace and was brought to our hospital. On arrival, his consciousness level was JCS 3, and his GCS score was 11 points. His body temperature was 28.4℃, systolic blood pressure 80mmHg, blood urea nitrogen 139.8mg/dL, and serum creatinine 19.72mg/dL. Hemodialysis was initially performed with a 34.6℃ dialysate, and its temperature was gradually raised to 39.0℃. At the end of a 3-hour dialysis session, body temperature had risen to 33.5℃. Case 2: The patient was a male in the 7th decade of life who was found lying on the ground in a park early in the morning by a police officer on patrol and was brought to our hospital. On arrival, his consciousness level was JCS 100, and his GCS score was 8 points. His body temperature was 27.5℃, and his systolic blood pressure was unmeasurable. Hemodialysis was initially performed with a 37.5℃ dialysate, and its temperature was gradually raised to 39.0℃. At the end of a 2-hour dialysis session his body temperature had risen to 33.3℃. Rewarming was achieved safely in both cases by raising the temperature of the dialysate by 1.6～1.7℃ per hour. We concluded that hemodialysis is useful as a means of safely rewarming hypothermia patients as other methods of extracoporeal circulation.
