Brain Cooling With Ventilation of Cold Air Over Respiratory Tract in Newborn Piglets: An Experimental and Numerical Study

We investigate thermal effects of pulmonary cooling which was induced by cold air through an endotracheal tube via a ventilator on newborn piglets. A mathematical model was initially employed to compare the thermal impact of two different gas mixtures, O₂-medical air (1:2) and O₂-Xe (1:2), across the respiratory tract and within the brain. Following mathematical simulations, we examined the theoretical predictions with O₂-medical air condition on nine anesthetized piglets which were randomized to two treatment groups: 1) control group (n = 4) and 2) pulmonary cooling group (n = 5). Numerical and experimental results using O₂-medical air mixture show that brain temperature fell from 38.5 °C and 38.3 °C ± 0.3 °C to 35.7 °C ± 0.9 °C and 36.5 °C ± 0.6 °C during 3 h cooling which corresponded to a mean cooling rate of 0.9 °C/h ± 0.2 °C/h and 0.6 °C/h ± 0.1 °C/h, respectively. According to the numerical results, decreasing the metabolic rate and increasing air velocity are helpful to maximize the cooling effect. We demonstrated that pulmonary cooling by cooling of inhalation gases immediately before they enter the trachea can slowly reduce brain and core body temperature of newborn piglets. Numerical simulations show no significant differences between two different inhaled conditions, i.e., O₂-medical air (1:2) and O₂-Xe (1:2) with respect to cooling rate.