Cooling Line for a TBI patient

[nkochrn, RN]

My best friend's brother is in ICU right now b/c he fell approx. 12 feet onto concrete and has a head injury. The non medical version of things I've gotten from her is basically that he lost a lot of blood and had swelling on both sides of his brain, ICP has gone down but not enough. He had an elevated temp all day yesterday that they couldn't get down, so they were putting a cooling line in. She said it was something that went through a vein in his chest. I was just curious if anyone could tell me more about what exactly this is, hadn't ever heard of it and couldn't find any info. about it.

[ckh23, BSN, RN]

I have never heard of a cooling line. When we use hypothermia procedures, such as after a cardiac arrest, there is a whole machine that does it. I'm thinking that they may have possibly placed a central line that they can run in cooled IV fluids into his central blood circulation to help bring down his temperature. High temperatures can sometimes happen in patients with head injuries because the auto regulating processes that the brain controls are disrupted due to the injury.

[nkochrn, RN]

That makes sense, I bet it is a central line! Her text says, "they put it into his right chest into the subquasion (Sp?) vein, it's a cooling catheter for the central vein." I could NOT figure out what subquasion would be, must be subclavian! Thanks, makes more sense now.

[Altra, BSN, RN]

Yes, this is a central line catheter with a temperature probe connected to a machine which delivers cooled fluids at a precise temperature to cool the patient to a specified temp over a specified time frame.