Abstract 120: Outcomes of Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest in Children

Abstract

Background: As pediatric out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) occurs infrequently, little is known about survival outcomes in children. We examined whether OHCA survival in children differed by patients’ age, sex, and race, as well as recent survival trends. Methods: Within the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES), a prospective U.S. OHCA registry encompassing 64 million residents, we identified patients less than 18 years of age with an OHCA from October, 2005 to December, 2012. We examined whether survival differed by patients’ age (≤1 year, 1-8 years, >8 years), sex, race, and initial cardiac arrest rhythm, using modified Poisson regression, adjusted for patient characteristics. Similarly, we examined trends in survival, with years 2005-7 as the reference. Results: A total of 1,412 patients with an OHCA were identified, of which 67 (4.7%) were infants, 918 (65.0%) were younger children, and 427 (30.2%) older children. Sixty percent of the study population was male and 33.4% were black. The vast majority of arrests involved a non-shockable rhythm, with only 9.2% of patients having a first documented rhythm of ventricular tachycardia (VT) or ventricular fibrillation (VF). Overall, 103 (7.3%) patients survived to hospital discharge. Of those with non-shockable rhythms (asystole, pulseless electrical activity, and unknown, non-shockable rhythms), 4.4% survived to discharge compared with a survival of 36.2% in those with VT or VF (P<0.001). After adjustment for patient characteristics, children 1-8 years of age were less likely to survive to hospital discharge compared with children >8 years of age (rate ratio [RR]: 0.52; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.34, 0.82). In addition, OHCAs due to VT or VF were associated with improved survival (RR 6.67; 95% CI 4.35, 10.23). In contrast, there were no differences in survival by sex or race. Additionally, no temporal trends in survival were observed (p=0.47). Conclusion: In a large, national registry of pediatric OHCA, we found no disparities in survival by patients’ sex, race, or year of arrest, although survival was lower in young children and those with non-shockable cardiac arrest rhythms.