US researchers restore brain for nearly drowned toddler

By Barry Eitel

SAN FRANCISCO (AA) – Doctors announced Wednesday they have for the first time reversed brain damage in a toddler who nearly drowned in a swimming pool.

Eden Carlson fell into a family swimming pool in February 2016 when she was 2 years old. She was submerged for 15 minutes and there was a period of two hours in which Carlson’s heart stopped beating.

After being resuscitated near her home in Arkansas and treated at a hospital for one month, she was still unresponsive.

Carlson’s parents allowed researchers from Louisiana State University and the University of North Dakota to attempt to reverse her brain damage using two types of oxygen therapies.

About two months after the accident, Paul Harch of LSU treated Eden by inserting normobaric oxygen --, air with levels of oxygen normally found at sea level -- in her nose. Several weeks later, Eden was sent to Louisiana for more intensive hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), where she was placed in a chamber filled with high levels of oxygen.

Harch believes using the normobaric treatment can be a more accessible way to treat those suffering from brain damage quickly, until more expensive and uncommon HBOT treatments become available.

“The startling regrowth of tissue in this case occurred because we were able to intervene early in a growing child, before long-term tissue degeneration,” Harch said in a statement. “Although it’s impossible to conclude from this single case if the sequential application of normobaric oxygen then HBOT would be more effective than HBOT alone, in the absence of HBOT therapy, short duration, repetitive normobaric oxygen therapy may be an option until HBOT is available. Such low-risk medical treatment may have a profound effect on recovery of function in similar patients who are neurologically devastated by drowning.”

HBOT remains controversial because some of its supporters believe it works as an alternative treatment for a wide range of maladies, including diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.

There is scant scientific evidence of its effectiveness as a treatment for diseases beyond some conditions, such as certain gas poisonings.