Association of obesity with worsened prehospital cardiac arrest

Background. This study evaluated a potential correlation between patient age, body weight and survival from prehospital cardiac arrest, as a secondary endpoint in a study evaluating the effect of bicarbonate on survival. Design. A prospective, randomized, double-blinded clinical intervention trial. Methods. 874 prehospital cardiopulmonary arrest patients in a prehospital urban, suburban, and rural regional emergency medical service (EMS) area were used. This group underwent conventional Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) intervention followed by empiric early administration of sodium bicarbonate (1 mEq/L). Survival was measured as presence of vital signs on ED survival. Data was analyzed utilizing Student’s t-test, Fisher’s exact test, Chi-square with Pearson correlation and logistic regression (p,0.05). Results. The overall survival rate was 13.9% (110 of 793) of prehospital arrest patients. There was no significant difference between the control and bicarbonate groups for patient age (67.7 versus 67.4 years, p50.769) and body weight (87.9 versus 89.7 kg, p50.508). There was no difference in outcome associated with age for non-survivors or survivors (67.3 versus 67.5 years, p50.943). However, a significant difference in total body weight (TBW) was noted between non-survivors and survivors (84.9¡27.3 kg versus 77.3¡21.4 kg, p,0.002). Conclusion. There is a significant adverse association between body weight and outcome, but no association between advanced age and prehospital survival.