A revised coil for the external cooling of the kidney.

The authors describe a coil they have developed for contact peroperative hypothermia of the kidney. This new type of coil eliminates the disadvantages of existing cooling coils, namely slow thermal transfer from kidney to cooling agent due to imperfect contact between the coil and the concave surface of the kidney, use of an inadequately conductive material and thermal losses from the outer surface of the coil. Special features of the coil described here include its construction to match the contours of the kidney, isolation of external shell to reduce thermal losses and continuous monitoring of renal tissue to reduce the danger of overcooling.