An innovative technology at New Hanover Regional Medical Center may sound like a top-secret military operation to some.

What Arctic Sun actually does is help protect a patient’s brain from damage after cardiac arrest by lowering the body’s temperature.

“Most patients who survive cardiac arrest are at risk for brain injury,” said Carolyn Brown, clinical education specialist at the hospital.

Cooling slows down the body’s metabolism, giving the brain a chance to recover from the trauma of a cardiac arrest and subsequent loss of blood flow. Without it, the body works harder as the organs compete for oxygenated blood, resulting in fever and brain swelling that can cause severe brain damage.

Arctic Sun is used on patients whose cardiac arrests occur both in and outside the hospital. Brown said about 20 patients receive Arctic Sun therapy each year.

Immediately following cardiac arrest, a patient has four thin cooling pads that circulate cold saline directly applied to their chest and thigh areas. Arctic Sun’s control module then begins lowering the patient’s body temperature to a pre-set level, usually around 91 degrees, inducing mild hypothermia. Patients can remain in that state up to 24 hours.

“Research shows that when an individual has an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and is resuscitated, but comatose, if you can cool them for 24 hours, they have a better chance of waking up with good brain function,” said Dr. Thaddeus Dunn, a critical care specialist at New Hanover Regional Medical Center who helped bring the technology to Wilmington.

Finding ways to protect brain function after someone has a heart attack outside the hospital has become a higher priority in recent years as more people are able to survive the initial attack, Dunn said.

“Ten years ago, it wouldn’t be a big issue, because it was uncommon for them to come in resuscitated,” Dunn said. “Now that automatic external defibrillators are small, portable and easy to use, more people are getting their hearts shocked back into rhythm. The blood flow gets restored, but we need to allow the brain to come back, too.”

The Arctic Sun system was purchased by the hospital in early 2006. It is recognized as a breakthrough medical technology and named a runner-up for the Wall Street Journal’s 2006 Technology Innovation Award. New Hanover Regional was among the first medical facilities in the state to offer the therapy, hospital officials said.

Dunn said the impact of Arctic Sun on cardiac arrest patients has been impressive, allowing an increased number to return to normal home life with little, if any, neurological impairment.

“It’s amazing,” Dunn said. “The numbers are significantly improved. We don’t save them to send them to nursing homes. We are saving them so they can go back to normal, or near normal, lives.”

New Hanover Regional Medical Center’s Heart Center offers the only open-heart surgery program in the area. It was recently named a Cardiac Center of Excellence by Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina.

The center provides a range of services, from diagnostic to rehabilitation, and is often at the forefront of technology, hospital officials said.

The hospital’s Heart Center performs more than 800 surgical procedures and 16,000 diagnostic procedures each year.