Efficacy of CPR in a general, adult ICU.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the initial cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) success rate and long term survival in an Intensive care unit (ICU) population.


METHODS
All patients with cardiac arrest over a 2-year-period (1999-2000) in a general, adult ICU of a general hospital of Athens.


METHODS
Retrospective collection of clinical data concerning patients, CPR characteristics and survival rates.


RESULTS
We examined 111 ICU patients, aged 56.4+/-1.9 years (72 males). SAPS II score was 43.9+/-3.8. CPR was performed in 98.2% of the patients within 30 s. Initial restoration of cardiac function (RCF) and successful CPR rate was 100% while 24 h survival was 9.2%. Survivors at 24 h were younger, mainly males, with lower SAPS II score, mainly with pulmonary disease, ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia (8/10) and initial pupil reactivity (5/10). Four patients required more than one cycle of CPR. Survival to discharge was zero.


CONCLUSIONS
Although the initial successful CPR rate in ICU patients may be high, long term survival and hospital discharge is disappointing. Although ICU patients are better monitored and treated in a timely fashion, they are disadvantaged by chronic underlying diseases, severe current medical illnesses and multi organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) leads to worst outcome after CPR compared with in-ward patients.
Myrianthefs
Pavlos
P
Athens University School of Nursing ICU at 'KAT' General Hospital, Nikis 2, Kifissia, 14561, Athens, Greece. p-myrianthefs@northwestern.edu
Kalafati
Maria
M
Lemonidou
Chryssoula
C
Minasidou
Evegenia
E
Evagelopoulou
Penelope
P
Karatzas
Stylianos
S
Baltopoulos
George
G
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016887:Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation / Q000379:methods / Q000401:mortality*; D005260:Female; D006115:Greece / Q000453:epidemiology; D006323:Heart Arrest / Q000401:mortality* / Q000628:therapy*; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006769:Hospitals, General; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D016019:Survival Analysis; D016896:Treatment Outcome