Ventricular Fibrillation Waveform Analysis during Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

Abstract

Ventricular fibrillation (VF) is the primary rhythm associated with cardiac arrest characterized as rapid, disorganized contrac-tions of the heart with complex electrocardiogram (ECG) patterns. Recent studies have reported that performing cardiopul-monary resuscitation (CPR) procedure prior to shock increases the survival rate especially especially when VF is untreated for more than 5 minutes. The waveform analysis is objective help in the choice of the right therapy (shock parameters, shock first or CPR first, drug administration). This analysis is a precondition of individually optimized defibrillation and contribute substantially to an increased quality of CPR and reduce delivery of failed rescue shock. Animal and clinical studies con-firmed that ventricular fibrillation waveform analysis contains information to reliably predict the countershock success rate and further improved countershock outcome prediction.