Periscope

The technique could revolutionize medicine because it would enable doctors to buy time for patients who arrive at the ER near death requiring time-consuming surgery.

"His results are real," says Dr. Tom Scalea, the chief trauma surgeon at the University of Maryland's trauma center in Baltimore. "There is not a question in my mind that this can happen. We could be testing within five years in ERs."

Safar admits that it will be challenging to find patients to experiment on, since people "aren't going to be in the shape to give consent." Choosing subjects will be made even tougher because liability-conscious hospitals will need to use all conventional lifesaving tactics before turning to the new science. And doctors say it will be critical to test the technique on some patients who aren't too far gone if the team wants to publish promising results.

Despite these hurdles, Safar predicts that human trials in emergency rooms will be underway in less than five years, perhaps within as little as two. And Scalea says only some "technical kinks" need to be resolved before the technique hits an ER near you.

Suzanne Smalley

DATA