Resuscitation
-
To relate the outcome of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest to whether medication with adrenaline (epinephrine) was given and whether patients were intubated. ⋯ In a national survey in Sweden including 10966 cases of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest the outcome was related to whether medication with adrenaline (epinephrine) was given and whether patients were intubated. Neither in total nor in any subgroup did we find results indicating beneficial effects of any of these two interventions. Whether treatment with adrenaline (epinephrine) or intubation will increase survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest needs to be confirmed in prospective randomised trials.
-
This study retrospectively analyzed the pattern of sodium bicarbonate (SB) use during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in the Brain Resuscitation Clinical Trial III (BRCT III). BRCT III was a prospective clinical trial, which compared high-dose to standard-dose epinephrine during CPR. SB use was left optional in the study protocol. ⋯ Therefore, if SB is used, earlier administration may be considered. Contrary to physiological rationale, clinical decisions regarding SB use did not seem to take into consideration the duration of pre-ACLS hypoxia times. We suggest that guidelines for SB use during CPR should emphasize the importance of pre-ACLS hypoxia time in contributing to metabolic acidosis and should be more specific in defining the duration of "protracted CPR or long resuscitative efforts", the most frequent indication for SB administration.