title: Do we know enough to introduce semi-automatic defibrillation by ambulancemen in Belgium?
abstract: The application of semi-automatic external defibrillators by ambulancemen or emergency medical technicians is in the U.S.A. accepted as a substantial progress in the treatment of out-of-hospital sudden death. A retrospective estimation of the percentage of patients registered by the Belgian Cardio-Pulmonary-Cerebral-Resuscitation study group between 1983 and 1987 that could benefit from early defibrillation yielded a gain in good survival of 1% for the whole population. In 1991 a prehospital semi automatic external defibrillation program was started as a feasibility study in several two-tiered emergency physician staffed systems with an ongoing registry of cardiac arrest events. For Bruges and Ghent there was a non-significant increase in prolonged survival in the ventricular fibrillation subgroups with respectively 4.7% and 5.1% since the introduction of the semi-automatic external defibrillators. Apparent differences between our emergency medical systems and e.g. Seattle, such as the number of 1st tier units covering the population and a short delay between 1st and 2nd tier might account for a lack of a statistically significant improvement so far.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anaesthesia and Critical Care, AZ St Jan, Bruges, Belgium.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Martens
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Calle
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mullie
mesh_terms: D001530:Belgium; D016887:Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation; D004554:Electric Countershock; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000458:organization & administration; D004634:Emergency Medical Technicians; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D008952:Mobile Health Units; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D015996:Survival Rate; D014693:Ventricular Fibrillation / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy