Results of cardiopulmonary resuscitation in a cardiology hospital.

The authors analysed a series of 557 consecutive patients who suffered cardiorespiratory arrest at the Dante Pazzanese Institute of Cardiology (DPIC) during a period of 5 years in order to examine factors predicting successful resuscitation and long-term survival. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) maneuvers were tried in 536 patients, with the following results: 284 patients (53%) died immediately, another 102 (19%) died within the first 24 h after the cardiac arrest and 150 patients (28%) survived more than 24 h. Among these, 65 (12.1%) died in the first month after cardiac arrest and other 29 (5.4%) died after that period. There were 43 late survivors (8%). Thirteen patients (2.4%) were lost to follow-up. After 9 years, the accumulative life expectancy was 8.7%. Coronary heart disease, cardiomyopathy and valvular heart disease were the most frequent underlying diseases. None of the 49 patients with cyanotic congenital heart disease survived. The heart arrest was mostly caused by heart failure (55.8%) and primary arrhythmia (17.2%) in the whole group, whereas the survivor group showed primary arrhythmia in 81.7% and heart failure in 7.3%. In those patients where the initial mechanism of cardiac arrest was ventricular fibrillation, 33.2% survived more than 1 month, while among those on ventricular asystole, only 3.4% survived more than 1 month.