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The importance of CPR over other interventions has been well documented in recent years, so yet another study confirming its usefulness in cardiac arrest seems redundant.  This latest study involves minimally-interrupted cardiac resuscitation, which emphasizes compressions over ventilations (to the point of requiring 200 compressions before the first defibrillation).  The group studied two cities in Arizona, comparing survival rates in the period before training on the new method to survival rates after its adoption.

The interesting data point from this study, however, is not the increased survival to hospital discharge (1.8% in the before period and 5.4% after).  It’s that the increased survival to discharge happened despite the two groups having no difference in survival to hospital admission.  I suppose the most likely explanation is that the heart is much easier to bring back than the brain–and CPR was never intended to keep the heart alive, it was meant to keep the brain alive to give other interventions the chance to restart the heart.

The hardest part in adopting this technique might be getting the medics to hold back on the tube–intubation is specifically discouraged until after three cycles of rhythm analysis (which is enough for shock-epi-shock), and a lot of medics feel the need to get that tube in there early, often before the IV.

Conclusion:  Pump away, Merrill.

Filed under: EMS Research