Resuscitation
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Wide variability in drug use in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: a report from the resuscitation outcomes consortium.
Despite the publication and dissemination of the Advanced Cardiac Life Support guidelines, variability in the use of drugs during resuscitation from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest may exist between different Emergency Medical Services throughout North America. The purpose of this study was to characterize the use of such drugs and evaluate their relationship to cardiac arrest outcomes. ⋯ There is considerable variability among Emergency Medical Services agencies in their use of pharmacological therapy for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests which may be resolved by performing large randomized trials examining effects on survival.
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Survival data for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) victims initially in PEA or asystole who convert to a shockable rhythm during attempted resuscitation, relative to an initial shockable rhythm, have never been previously reported. This study was done to assess OHCA outcomes among a large cohort of adults in the CARES dataset stratified by three rhythm categories: initial shockable (IS), converted shockable (CS), and never shockable (NS). ⋯ After OHCA, the survival rate for CS victims is significantly lower than for IS patients. These findings suggest that CS and IS are different entities and that alternatives to existing resuscitation algorithm tailored to patients with CS should be investigated.
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The aim of this study was to evaluate the risk of prolonged transportation against the benefit of treatment in high-volume centres for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients without prehospital return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC). ⋯ A higher rate of survival to discharge was demonstrated when OHCA patients without prehospital ROSC were transported to high-volume rather than low-volume centres. The rate was still significantly higher when the transportation time was longer compared with that of low-volume centres.
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Comparative Study
Female sex is not associated with improved rates of ROSC or short term survival following prolonged porcine ventricular fibrillation.
There may be a survival benefit in female patients experiencing cardiac arrest, which could affect the interpretation of in vivo animal studies. We hypothesized that sex predicts return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) and short-term survival (SURV) in porcine studies of prolonged ventricular fibrillation (VF). ⋯ Sex predicts neither ROSC nor SURV in a swine model of prolonged VF.
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Intraosseous access is an essential method in emergency medicine when other forms of vascular access are unavailable and there is an urgent need for fluid or drug therapy. A number of publications have discussed the suitability of using intraosseous access for laboratory testing. We aimed to further evaluate this issue and to study the accuracy and precision of intraosseous measurements. ⋯ Based on our findings in this animal model, cartridge based point of care instruments appear suitable for the analysis of intraosseous samples. The agreement between intraosseous and arterial analysis seems to be good enough for the method to be clinically useful. The precision, quantified in terms of CV, is at least as good for intraosseous as for arterial analysis. There is no clinically important difference between samples from left and right tibia, indicating a good reproducibility.