The American journal of emergency medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
A randomized clinical study of cardiopulmonary-cerebral resuscitation: design, methods, and patient characteristics. Brain Resuscitation Clinical Trial I Study Group.
The Brain Resuscitation Clinical Trial (BRCT) was established as a multi-institutional, clinical study of brain resuscitation. The BRCT was designed to test the hypothesis that the addition of thiopental loading to the protocol of standard therapy for cardiac arrest survivors, comatose at 10-50 minutes after restoration of spontaneous circulation, would significantly increase the number of patients recovering good cerebral function. Twelve hospitals in nine countries collaborated in this randomized, controlled clinical trial. ⋯ The majority of the arrests (74%) occurred out of hospital, and major pathology underlying arrest was cardiac. Arrest time was greater than 5 minutes in 36% of the patients. As a result of randomization, patient characteristics at entry as well as the characteristics associated with the brain insult in the standard group were similar to those in the thiopental group.