I was recently looking over topics covered on CF the past year, and the idea of the vitrification procedure being done at the point of deanimation/pronouncement jumped out of the archives at me.
In this post, I asked Ben Best about the idea of "remote vitrification," having reinvented the idea in my own head, not knowing as I do now that it was already for some years discussed occasionally in the cryonics "inner circles":
http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/message/1187540323/What+about+the+idea+of+remote+vitrification-
Ben replied with the following:
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Remote vitrification, reperfusion injury
August 19 2007 at 8:49 PM Ben Best (Login Benbest_)
Veteran Member
Response to What about the idea of remote vitrification?
There is widespread agreement that vitrification in the field would be good IF if could be done effectively and IF shipment could be done without risk of devitrification. My fear of the latter has diminished, as I mentioned in my report on the SA conference:
http://www.cryonics.org/immortalist/july07/sa.htm
See the paragraph beginning "Dr. Fahy also commented on the ugly electron..." and the two paragraphs after the intervening paragraph about intermediate temperature storage. Dr. Wowk's comments about the "safe zone" near and above dry ice temperature makes me think that vitrification in the field and shipment in dry ice may be a reasonable option if the vitrification can be performed properly and if the patient can be cooled quickly to dry ice temperature. The best option is always to have the patient deanimate near Alcor or CI, but remote vitrification would eliminate the problems of cold ischemic damage during shipment.
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And here is the relevant information from the SA conference report Ben referred to:
"Dr. Fahy also commented on the ugly electron micrographs of brain tissue subjected to 24 hours of cold ischemia. This would be an argument for field vitrification and shipment to the cryonics facility at liquid nitrogen temperature in a dry shipper. It is also an argument for terminal cryonics patients deanimating near to their cryonics facility.
"Dr. Pichugin has argued that it is safe to ship vitrified CI patients in dry ice if they have been vitrified with CI-VM-1. I have been worried about devitrification (which is as bad as straight freezing) and have been wanting better proof that dry ice temperature is truly safe for shipment. Now I am more inclined to allow overseas dry ice shipment of vitrified CI patients. I discussed this with Philip Rhoades and Gunter Boden. I also phoned Dr. Klaus Sames after the conference to discuss the matter with him. It may be quite technically challenging for an overseas group to be able to vitrify a cryonics patient"
In the above post, Ben also mentioned the following regarding the CI-81 patient and possible reperfusion injury under the current often-used system of a field washout and perfusion with stabilization fluids, for transport to a central site where a second perfusion of vitrification fluids is done:
"I am now feeling the need to qualify my earlier statement: "A remote washout can cause reperfusion injury if performed more than a half-hour post-mortem." In making this statement I should have more explicitly said "a half-hour post-mortem with no cooling or circulation". Reperfusion injury occurs when there has been over half hour or more of normothermic ischemic injury because of an absence of circulation and cooling. In the case of SA giving ice-bath cooling and CPS there was no half-hour plus of normothermic ischemia. Doing a blood washout would NOT be expected to cause reperfusion injury three hours later when ischemic injury has been prevented with ice bath cooling and CPS."
It is encouraging that reperfusion injury may not have occurred in that case, but how many other cases have there been where the patient with circulatory failure waited way too long for a cryonics team to arrive, and when they did, washed the patient out and pumped stabilization fluids in, after which the patient was shipped for hours to an operating room for a second perfusion?
CI, under Ben's knowledgeable leadership, knowing the danger of reperfusion injury, even went to changing their non-local funeral home's guidelines to simply not do a stabilization washout/perfusion at all; rather, ship as fast as possible.
The obvious answer to this "double perfusion" problem is remote/field vitrification. Do the whole banana right there, where and when the patient deanimates. Then do safe shipping to the storage organization, on dry ice. How much easier can that be?
Although it is my understanding that many people think this is something that "can't be done," there are others I hear of from behind the scenes who have most of the problems such as equipment size, already nearly worked out for this. It sounds to me like it is now just a matter of getting your cryonics organization you are signed up with, on board to make it happen.
This is probably the most significant issue in cryonics for 2008. Field vitrification, remote vitrification, whatever you wanna call it. With the right package of downsized equipment, supplies, and qualified medical personnel, a team can set up just about anywhere - hospice facility, medical clinic, funeral home, hospital, somebody's living room - and get there with all the stuff using conventional transportation.
If you are signed up and your money put down, with a cryonics organization, this is the year to demand a quality cryopreservation. Contact them and tell them you want the vitrification procedure done for you wherever it is that you deanimate/are pronounced dead. Don't settle for last decade's model which could cause serious injury to you, possibly making your reanimation impossible.
Further comments, questions, ideas, whatnot - are fully welcomed. It is time the cryonics community addressed this overwhelmingly important issue.
FD