Success Rate Of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Research Articles

TV distorting survival rates.

TELEVISION VIEWERS are receiving an inaccurate impression of the success rate of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), congress heard.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation: are practitioners being realistic?

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is now established medical practice for all in-hospital cardiac arrests except where a specific 'do not resuscitate' (DNR) order is in place. This article explores many of the ethical and moral issues surrounding CPR and the use of DNR orders. It examines the success rate of in-hospital CPR and raises the question of what constitutes outcome success by illustrating that at best only 15% of resuscitated patients survive to hospital discharge. The article proposes that both patients and healthcare professionals grossly overestimate the success of CPR and suggests that many elderly patients might choose not to be resuscitated if they were allowed to make an informed choice. It concludes by suggesting that further work needs to be undertaken with regard to early assessment of all in-hospital patients, combined with realistic and frank communication between healthcare professionals and patients if futile, undignified and costly deaths are to be avoided.

A survey of nursing and medical staff views on the use of cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the hospice

Research evidence suggests that cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) would be indicated in very few hospice patients. However, with the increasing access and expansion of specialist palliative care services the question of CPR is becoming more important. In order to develop a policy in our unit we felt it was important to assess the understanding, attitudes and experience of the health care professionals involved. A semi-structured questionnaire regarding CPR issues, including case scenarios, was distributed to doctors and registered nurses in a palliative care unit. Thirty-seven (80%) of the questionnaires were returned. Ten per cent of respondents identified patients for whom they felt CPR would have been indicated in the event of an unexpected cardiac arrest. Thirty-two per cent could foresee the number of patients in this category increasing in the future. The majority of respondents indicated that CPR should be discussed in certain cases, however 86% had never done so. The success rate of CPR was frequently overestimated. Some respondents felt vulnerable as there was no existing written policy. Factors thought important in making decisions regarding CPR orders included: prognosis; patient's wishes; quality of life; and legal issues. CPR in palliative care units raises many practical and ethical concerns. Our survey shows that staff are aware of the small, but increasing, need for its consideration in certain cases. There was a wide range of views regarding the role of CPR with an overestimation of the chances of success and concerns regarding discussion of the issue with patients. When introducing a CPR policy in a palliative care unit, adequate education and a framework for decision making is required.

Outcome of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation in a Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit † 221

Background: The outcome of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in a pediatric cardiac intensive care unit is unknown. The reported incidence of CPR in general pediatric intensive care unit is between 1.4% and 6.0%, and CPR success and survival rates vary from 12% to 64% and 9% to 31% respectively. The objective of this study was to determine the rates of success and survival of children who had CPR in a specialized cardiac intensive care unit setting, and define the influence of pre-arrest variables, if any, on the outcome.

Unexpected Cardiac Arrest After Cardiac Surgery: Incidence, Predisposing Causes, and Outcome of Open Chest Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

To assess the incidence of acute mechanical causes precipitating sudden cardiac arrest in cardiac surgery patients during the immediate postoperative period. In addition, we report the success rate of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in which open-chest CPR was employed at an early stage of the resuscitation effort. Data on all cardiac surgical patients who suffered a sudden cardiac arrest during the first 24 h after surgery were collected prospectively. CPR consisted of conventional closed-chest CPR initially and was followed within 3 to 5 min, if needed, by open-chest CPR. Of 3,982 patients undergoing cardiac surgery over a 30-month period, 29 patients (0.7%) had a sudden cardiac arrest. Of these, 13 patients (45%) were successfully resuscitated with closed-chest CPR, 14 (48%) with open-chest CPR, and 2 (7%) died despite closed- and open-chest CPR. Four CPR survivors died subsequently in the ICU, yielding an overall hospital discharge rate of 79%. Perioperative myocardial infarction was the underlying cause of sudden cardiac arrest in 14 patients (48%), and mechanical impediments to cardiac function (tamponade or graft malfunction) in another 8 (28%) patients; in the remaining 7 patients (24%), no underlying cause was found. The length of ICU stay was 6+/-1 (mean+/-SE) days. None of the patients developed wound infection and all were neurologically intact at hospital discharge. Mechanical factors account for a substantial portion (28%) of causes of sudden cardiac arrest occurring in hemodynamically stable patients during the immediate postoperative period. This high incidence, in conjunction with the high survival rate achieved by open CPR, supports an early approach to open-chest CPR in this group of patients.

Attitudes toward life-sustaining treatment of older persons in Hong Kong.

There have been few studies of the attitudes of older Asians toward life-sustaining therapy. This paper presents the knowledge of and attitudes toward cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and life support in a group of subjects in Hong Kong. Cross-sectional, descriptive study. Of the 543 subjects, 382 were old-age home residents and 161 were in-patients of geriatric wards. Sociodemographic data, functional ability (using the Barthel Index), self-perceived health scale, knowledge of life-sustaining procedures, and subjects' preferences for such treatments were studied. They were also asked to give the most important reason for wanting or declining CPR, and to indicate who they believe should be the decision-maker(s) regarding whether they should receive life-sustaining treatment. Approximately 80% of old-age home residents and 60% of hospitalized patients had no knowledge of life-sustaining therapy. The success rate of CPR was overestimated by older subjects, and most wished to be resuscitated. However, up to 20% changed their minds and declined CPR after they knew the true outcome of the procedure. Half of the subjects wanted life support. Univariate analysis found that advanced age and not having a spouse were associated significantly with CPR preference, whereas subjects' knowledge was associated with preference for life support. Multivariate analysis revealed that advanced age, not having a spouse, and female sex were independently associated with a tendency to decline CPR. A considerable proportion of older people wished to be involved in decision-making regarding life-sustaining treatment. Knowledge of life-sustaining procedures was poor among older people in Hong Kong compared with their counterparts in western countries. Although most older subjects wanted CPR, a number of them changed their minds after they knew the poor outcome. Therefore, older patients should be given more information about life-sustaining therapy and encouraged to take part in their treatment plans.

The effect of hospital admission on the opinions and knowledge of elderly patients regarding cardiopulmonary resuscitation

to determine (i) if the opinions of elderly people, regarding their wish for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), change after staying in hospital, (ii) how much elderly people wish to be involved in making decisions about CPR and (iii) the degree of knowledge they use to make their decisions. consecutive sample survey. assessment, treatment and rehabilitation unit. 95 elderly inpatients (63% of all admissions) without a terminal illness who could give informed consent, interviewed after hospital admission. Sixty-seven were interviewed again at hospital discharge and three were interviewed 16-35 days after admission. patient education and semi-structured questionnaire. patients' knowledge and opinions on basic knowledge of CPR, preference for CPR, who should decide and how this should be documented. knowledge improved after intervention, although patients persistently overestimated the success rate of CPR. Eighty percent on admission and 69% following a hospital stay wished to have CPR if necessary. Men were more likely to want CPR. On admission, 74% stated the patient should make the decision regarding CPR. This rose to 84% after a hospital stay. Only 57% wished to have their preference recorded in the hospital record and only 43% wanted their general practitioner notified of their wishes. Ninety-four percent felt comfortable with the interview. elderly people wish to be consulted about CPR but many do not wish their preference to be committed to paper. Most older patients want CPR but these wishes may change with time. It is important that any recorded directive from a patient is updated frequently.

Prehospital resuscitation - outcome in an urban area

All prehospital resuscitations performed by emergency physicians in the city of Bochum, Germany, were recorded and evaluated prospectively from 1 August 1989 to 30 September 1990. Initially successful cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) was achieved in 33.8% (alive at admission), and definitive success in 10.4% (discharged alive). Of the patients who presented with cardiac arrest before the arrival of the emergency physician, 28.4% could be resuscitated initially and 7.6% survived definitively. In patients who suffered circulatory arrest on or after the arrival of the emergency physician, the initial success rate of CPR was 51.7%, and the definitive success rate 11.1%. Although the initial success rate was significantly more favourable, the definitive outcome did not differ statistically between these two groups. Two time periods were compared. During the first period of 5 months only one base with two ambulances staffed with emergency physicians was available. During the second period of 9 months an additional base with a physician-staffed ambulance was established. This reorganization resulted in the reduced call to arrival time falling from 8.5 +/- 2.4 min to 7.6 +/- 2.4 min (univariate variance analysis: f = 8.89, d.f. = 1.31, p < 0.01). This decrease, however did not improve either the initial or the definitive success of CPR. From these results we conclude that further improvement of prehospital resuscitation can only be achieved to a small extent by reducing the call to arrival time of ambulances staffed with emergency physicians. Improvement is more likely to be seen when immediate resuscitation is performed by bystanders present at the scene.

In-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation: a 30-year review.

We performed a meta-analysis to: (1) assess the disputed issue of in-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) success rates among elderly patients, (2) investigate the possibility of a declining CPR success rate between 1960 and 1990, (3) provide an overview estimate of CPR effectiveness in specific patient groups, and (4) assess CPR risks. Ninety-eight reports providing in-hospital CPR survival-to-discharge rates were included in this overview. These reports were identified from MEDLINE searches, previous reviews, and reference citations. A pooled analysis revealed that 2994 (15 percent) of 19,955 patients were successfully resuscitated (survival to discharge). The rate of successful CPR has not changed in 30 years (r = -0.14, P > 0.05), but there has been a steady decline in the optimism regarding its value (r = -0.29, P < 0.01). Patients younger than 70 years of age had a success rate of 16.2 percent (odds ratio = 1.36; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.20 to 1.53) versus 12.4 percent for patients older than 70 years (P < 0.001). Community hospitals had a higher CPR success rate than teaching hospitals (18.5 percent versus 13.6 percent, P < 0.001). Although 72.9 percent of the post-CPR deaths were within 72 hours, prolonged in hospital survival in a vegetative state did occur; 1.6 percent of successfully resuscitated patients had a permanent neurological impairment. The increasing pessimism about the value of CPR, specifically, its futility in the elderly patient, is not supported by this review. The results of this meta-analysis should assist both the physician and the patient in determining the probable outcome of CPR.

Changing trends in early success rate of cardiopulmonary resuscitation outside hospital in Göteborg

Changing trends in early success rate of cardiopulmonary resuscitation outside hospital in Göteborg

Outcomes of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation in the Elderly

Abstract Study Objective:To determine the success rate of cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the elderly and to define characteristics of elderly patients for whom cardiopulmonary resuscitation is ef...

Outcomes of cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the elderly.

To determine the success rate of cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the elderly and to define characteristics of elderly patients for whom cardiopulmonary resuscitation is effective. Retrospective chart review. Five Boston health-care institutions: two acute-care hospitals; two chronic-care hospitals; and one long-term-care institution. Five hundred and three consecutive patients aged 70 and over who received cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Of 503 patients, 112 (22%) survived initially but only 19 (3.8%) survived to hospital discharge. The poorest outcomes were for patients with unwitnessed arrests (1 of 116 survived), terminal arrhythmias such as asystole and electromechanical dissociation (1 of 237 survived), and patients with cardiopulmonary resuscitation lasting more than 15 minutes (1 of 360 survived). Only 2 (0.8%; CI, 0.0% to 2.0%) of 244 patients with out-of-hospital cardiopulmonary arrests left the hospital alive. Of 259 patients with in-hospital arrests, 17 (6.5%; CI, 3.4% to 9.6%) survived to discharge. Most survivors had ventricular arrhythmias and were resuscitated within minutes. Initial survivors with either impaired consciousness or functional impairment after the arrest had significantly worse chances of survival than patients without these impairments. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is rarely effective for elderly patients with cardiopulmonary arrests that are either out-of-hospital, unwitnessed, or associated with asystole or electromechanical dissociation.

Brain Resuscitation Clinical Trial (BRCT)

The Critical Care Medicine department, St. Jans hospital, Brugge, has a prehospital emergency medicine service (EMS) staffed by experienced intensive care specialists. We have been involved in clinical research for the improvement of cerebral outcome after circulatory arrest (CA) and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) since 1977. In 1982, 250 patients in CA were resuscitated from an area of about 150,000 people. There were 70 short-term survivals, 30 longtime survivals. Although the success rate of CPR is highly influenced by important EMS related factors, including response time, a substantial proportion of hearts are restarted also after prolonged CA, but the patients die later in brain failure. There is evidence that the brain is not only damaged by the CA itself, but that lesions after restoration of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) progress and are amenable to therapy. We can illustrate the progressivity of brain lesions by two phenomena: 1) Animal experiments in other centers (P. Safar, J. Michenfelder) and our research at Janssen Pharmaceutics, Beerse, Belgium. Cerebral venous blood was sampled from the sagittal sinus after a prolonged CA (10 min); cerebral venous PO2 of 40-60 mmHg before CA, rose to 80-100 mmHg immediately after ROSC and about 1-2 h after ROSC decreased to 20-30 mmHg — indicating progressive failure of oxygen transport. 2) Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) enzyme activity was studied after CA in humans. We correlated final neurological outcome with the early appearance (at 2k h) of lytic enzymes in the CSF. In some patients who later recover neurologically only partially, CSF enzymes are still low at 2k h, as if the cells are still viable at this stage.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation: Analysis of six years' experience and review of the literature

A six-year series encompassing 1,073 cases of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) at St. Elizabeth Medical Center (SEMC) was analyzed and compared with 13,266 hospital CPR cases in the literature. SEMC had a CPR success rate of 56% and a survival-to-discharge rate of 24%, compared with 39% and 17%, respectively, in the literature. Compared with the anticipated death rate had these patients not undergone CPR, a hospital mortality reduction of over 6% was achieved. Resuscitation was attempted in about 30% of all deaths and in 1% to 1.5% of all admissions. Four or more resuscitation attempts on a patient during a single admission were uniformly associated with fatal outcome. The average age of CPR patients and survivors was 60 years. Half the primary causes were cardiac; one-fourth were pulmonary. CPR success was unaffected by patient location, but most patients initially arrested in the emergency department, which had the best survival to discharge rate. Of CPR patients who were discharged alive, 75% survived for at least one year. Fifty percent were alive after three years, and 20%, after five.

Saving Lives?

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) has become a fairly common medical procedure. Many patients who die in hospitals have had CPR administered to them. Most of these patients have advanced disease and their cardiac arrest is not unexpected. In this setting attempts at resuscitation usually do little to change the outcome. In the hospital but out of the intensive care unit, the success rate of CPR (as measured by discharge from the hospital) is about 10%. However, the results of resuscitation from out-of-hospital ventricular fibrillation due to atherosclerotic heart disease are better. If resuscitation is begun early, before brain damage occurs (within four to six minutes of cessation of blood flow), 30% to 45% of patients can return to their prearrest state.^1,2 Considering the potential for patient salvage, who should initiate out-of-hospital CPR, and how should they be trained? As recently as 1967 it was thought that only physicians should be