OBJECTIVE To determine the prognosis of patients with ventricular fibrillation in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Hong Kong and examine its relationship with the other links in the chain of survival. DESIGN Prospective descriptive study. SETTING Three accident and emergency departments, Hong Kong. PARTICIPANTS Patients older than 18 years with non-traumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arres...

The chain of survival has been shown to improve the chances of survival for victims of cardiac arrest. Post-cardiac arrest care has been demonstrated to significantly impact the survival of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). How post-cardiac arrest care influences the survival of OHCA patients has been a main concern in recent years. The objective of this study was to assess the survival ou...

BACKGROUND Epinephrine is recommended in advanced cardiac life support guidelines for use in adult cardiac arrest, and has been used in cardiopulmonary resuscitation since 1896. Yet, despite its long time use and incorporation into guidelines, epinephrine suffers from a paucity of evidence regarding its influence on survival. This critical review was conducted to address the knowledge deficit r...

BACKGROUND In-hospital cardiac arrest with its poor prognosis is a challenging problem in hospitals. The aim of this study was to evaluate in Polish hospitals the frequency of in-hospital cardiac arrests with the subsequent mortality, with special emphasis on the type of unit at which the event occurred, and the patient's demographic data, such as age and sex. METHODS The study was a retrospe...

The 2010 impact goal of the American Heart Association is to reduce death rates from heart disease and stroke by 25% and to lower the prevalence of the leading risk factors by the same proportion. Much of the burden of acute heart disease is initially experienced out of hospital and can be reduced by timely delivery of effective prehospital emergency care. Many patients with an acute myocardial...

STUDY OBJECTIVES To determine whether in-hospital cardiac arrests occurring in regular wards are preceded by some event(s), and the diagnostic and therapeutic measures adopted. METHODS From 1 May 1999 to 31 December 2001, events occurring in the 6 h preceding cardiac arrest were reviewed by checking the medical and nurse records and interviewing the attending staff. Exclusion criteria were (a...

E O’Sullivan, C Deasy Department of Emergency Medicine, Cork University Hospital, Wilton, Cork

The national survival rate to hospital discharge for patients with in-hospital cardiac arrest has previously been documented by the National Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) Registry as 17%.1 More recently, Peberdy et al reported that in 86,748 adult, consecutive in-hospital cardiac arrest events in the National CPR Registry, with data obtained from 507 medical/surgical participating hospita...