Trial reportOccupational and environmental medicine2023
Cooling vest improves surgeons' thermal comfort without affecting cognitive performance: a randomised cross-over trial.
Trial report in Occupational and environmental medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04511208 (Cooling Vest May Reduce Heat Stress, Improve Thermal Comfort, and Preserve Cognitive Performance of Surgeons While Performing Surgery), which is not on this map. Cited by 3 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Cooling Vest May Reduce Heat Stress, Improve Thermal Comfort, and Preserve Cognitive Performance of Surgeons While Performing Surgery
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Occupational hazards in hip and knee adult reconstruction surgery : a systematic review of physical and psychological stressors.Bone & joint open · 2026Pooled it
- Impact of environmental factors on operative team performance: systematic review and guidance for optimising clinical practice.Surgical endoscopy · 2025Pooled it
- Effect of cold and warm water ingestion on physiological and performance parameters during simulated hot burn surgeries.Temperature (Austin, Tex.) · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesSurgeons become uncomfortable while performing surgery because heat transfer and evaporative cooling are restricted by insulating surgical gowns. Consequently, perceptions of thermal discomfort during surgery may impair cognitive performance. We, therefore, aimed to evaluate surgeons' thermal comfort, cognitive performance, core and mean skin temperatures, perceptions of sweat-soaked clothing, fatigue and exertion with and without a CoolSource cooling vest (Cardinal Health, Dublin, Ohio, USA).
methodsThirty orthopaedic surgeons participated in a randomised cross-over trial, each performing four total-joint arthroplasties with randomisation to one of four treatment sequences. The effects of cooling versus no cooling were measured using a repeated-measures linear model accounting for within-subject correlations.
resultsThe cooling vest improved thermal comfort by a mean (95% CI) of -2.1 (-2.7 to -1.6) points on a 0-10 scale, p<0.001, with no evidence of treatment-by-period interaction (p=0.94). In contrast, cooling had no perceptible effect on cognition, with an estimated mean difference (95% CI) in Cleveland Clinic Cognitive Battery (C3B) Processing Speed Test score of 0.03 (95% CI -2.44 to 2.51), p=0.98, or in C3B Visual Memory Test score with difference of 0.88 (95% CI -2.25 to 4.01), p=0.57. Core temperature was not lower with the cooling vest, with mean difference (95% CI) of -0.13 (-0.33°C to 0.07°C), p=0.19, while mean skin temperature was lower, with mean difference of -0.23 (95% CI -0.40°C to -0.06°C) lower, p=0.011. The cooling vest significantly reduced surgeons' perceptions of sweat-soaked clothing, fatigue and exertion.
conclusionsA cooling vest worn during surgery lowered core and skin temperatures, improved thermal comfort, and decreased perceptions of sweating and fatigue, but did not improve cognition. Thermal discomfort during major orthopaedic surgery is thus largely preventable, but cooling does not affect cognition. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT04511208.
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