Aortic pressures during closed-chest cardiac massage.

RESUSCITATION by cardiac massage through the closed chest has been described recently by Kouwenhoven and associates.1 This technic consists of applying firm, rhythmic pressure to the lower sternum, thus compressing the heart between it and the spine. Based on exhaustive animal experiments, this method was instrumental in the effective cardiac resuscitation of 20 patients reported by the authors. Three of these cases were observed to be in ventricular fibrillation. The present report concerns an episode of ventricular fibrillation during retrograde left heart catheterization that afforded an opportunity to obtain direct aortic pressure measurements while closed-chest cardiac compression was being performed.