Resuscitation
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Comparative Study
The relationship of carbon dioxide excretion during cardiopulmonary resuscitation to regional blood flow and survival.
Currently, there are no practical means of prospectively determining cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) adequacy in the field. Airway CO2 excretion can be noninvasively and stably measured under changing environmental conditions. We investigated the relationships between the volume of airway CO2 excreted (CO2EX) during CPR to regional blood flow (RBF) and survival. ⋯ The highest CO2EX group had the highest rate of survival (86%), but did not always have significantly higher cardiac output (CO), myocardial or cerebral blood flows (MBF, CBF) than the lowest CO2EX group with a 0% survival rate. These data suggest survival is tracked better by CO2EX than by CO, MBF or CBF. Therefore, CO2EX appears to provide a practical reliable noninvasive method of determining CPR efficacy in the field.