Category: Cardiac arrest

Resuscitation recently published an article that assessed the association between intramuscular (IM) epinephrine and survival outcomes, including survival to hospital discharge, survival to hospital admission, and functional survival. Although there is ongoing debate regarding the role of epinephrine in cardiac arrest, this study demonstrated that IM epinephrine improved survival. Link to article

The accuracy of EKG diagnosis following cardiac arrest and return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC), particularly when determining the need to activate the Cath lab during the middle of the night, can be highly challenging. Baldi et al. published this study regarding “Association of Timing of Electrocardiogram Acquisition After Return of Spontaneous Circulation With Coronary Angiography […]

NEJM study in 2016 showed no survival benefits or favorable neurological outcome regarding use of Amiodarone vs Lidocaine vs placebo in OHCA. In a recent publication by Acad Emerg Med, a post hoc analysis of original study was done and the authors found time to Amiodarone in OHCA could be associated with better survival to […]

There are bunch of rumors that come to play regarding what other medications we can use in cardiac arrest patient, Calcium, Sodium Bicarb, tPA,… A study published in JAMA tried to answer part of this question: “Effect of Intravenous or Intraosseous Calcium vs Saline on Return of Spontaneous Circulation in Adults With Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest, […]

Very interesting study in patients who got ROSC and had an ECG. Patients with an ECG before 7 minutes after ROSC had more false positive ECG findings in favor of STEMI vs 8-33 minutes and more than 33 minutes. Link to study

It has been a very difficult time for Epi since last 5 years! 2011: Effect of adrenaline on survival in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: A randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial 2012: Prehospital Epinephrine Use and Survival Among Patients With Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest 2014: Is Epinephrine During Cardiac Arrest Associated With Worse Outcomes in Resuscitated Patients? and now […]

Amiodarone, Lidocaine, or Placebo in Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest, which one is your choice? The 2015 update of ACLS is still recommending Amio in Vfib, VTach Cardiac arrest after Shock and Epi, But new study in NEJM proved that among 3026 patients who randomized to Amiodarone (974), Lidocaine (993), or Placebo (1059), there were no statistically […]

In a meta-analysis published in Resuscitation, 10 observational study reviewed and showed among patients with out of hospital cardiac arrest, patients who intubated via ETT had significantly better

OXYGEN! Please put  patient on NC 2 -4. This is one of our critical action in mock oral board questions, but is it really a critical action, how much oxygen do we need for a pt w/o hypoxemia?

Medical Principles and Practice published an article that uses a structured teaching tools to summarized 5 Hs and 5 Ts in PEA cardiac arrest, Lets start with 5 Hs(Hyper and Hypo K, Hypoxia, Hydrogen, Hypovolemia and Hypothermia) and 5 Ts( Tension PTX, Tamponade, Trauma, Toxins, Thrombosis), a very routine practice in ACLS guideline,

Wow. This is the third one, after 2 articles that showed Epi in prehospital really does not decrease mortality , now this retrospective study presenteddata that none of patients with asystole and no

In October 2011, I reviewed an interesting article in Resuscitation, September 2011 regarding use of Epinephrine in per-hospital setting, ,now we have another study published in JAMA, March 2012.

This is a very interesting study regarding usage of epinephrine in out of hospital setting.  This is probably the first control trial in human post cardiac arrest. The study is about