Prolonged CPR Holds Benefits, a Study Shows

[dadbo46 50]

From today's NY Times. Very interesting:

Prolonged CPR Holds Benefits, a Study Shows

When a hospital patient goes into cardiac arrest, one of the most difficult questions facing the medical team is how long to continue cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Now a new study involving hundreds of hospitals suggests that many doctors may be giving up too soon.

http://www.nytimes.c...study-says.html

[PEMO3 523]

Very interesting article. This puts an entire new spin on the discussion that was held previously about on scene termination of CPR and how soon is too soon to stop? Puts a doubt in your mind now if that extra set of compressions would have made a difference.

[SRS131EMTFF 471]

Lets not forget, that this study was done on pts already in the hospital, i.e. they are in the post-surgical or ortho or onocology wards when cardiac arrest occurred, not at their homes/businesses/public. While this study will obviously have long term impacts on pre-hospital CPR, this current study excluded pre-hopsital CPR attempts from their sampling group.

That is not to say however that this is not exciting news in EMS however.

Edited September 5, 2012 by SRS131EMTFF

[comical115 32]

This is a retrospective study that looked at in hospital cardiac arrests. The researchers correlated an increased chance at survival with a longer duration of CPR. This study doesn't say anything about the presenting rythym the patient was found to be in, whether hypothermia was induced, whether it was used during the arrest or on ROSC (return of sponteanous circulation), which rounds of cardiac medications were repeated, etc.

If a physican is willing to take another 20 minutes to try and correct the situation, I'm fairly certain the patient is getting a few more medications or treatments within that 20 minutes which could very well be the cause in the increase of survival rates.

[EMS92 30]

Intresting article

[RNEMT26 40]

I had a patient who coded 2 separate times, the first tim he became bradycardic and then asystolic and was brought back. And then he coded again and had CPR preformed for almost an hour and a half, they did also use a automated compression machine. Long story short, he was crashed down to VA ECMO, required 13 drips, and continuous dialysis for a week or so and he walked out of the hospital a couple weeks later with a fully intact mental status.