Making sense of clinical outcomes following cardiac arrest.
OBJECTIVE
To provide a summary of the recent literature on clinical outcomes in adults with cardiac arrest, focusing on the impact of patient-specific factors in combination with cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) related, and postresuscitative-related factors.


RESULTS
Cardiac arrest is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Despite the use of conventional cardiopulmonary resuscitation, rates of return of spontaneous circulation and survival with minimal neurologic impairment remain low. A number of recent studies have examined the impact of patient-specific factors (duration of cardiac arrest, initial rhythm, age, premorbid states), CPR-related (the use of mechanical CPR, the use of impedance threshold device, vasopressors, extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation, active compression-decompression, and impedance threshold device), and postresuscitative-related factors (hypothermia, coronary angiography, hyperoxia, hyper/hypocapnia, mean arterial blood pressure) on cardiac arrest outcomes.


CONCLUSIONS
Further studies, namely randomized controlled trials, assessing the impact of advanced therapies are warranted to evaluate their impact on survival and neurologic function in adults with cardiac arrest.
Resuscitation Research Group, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York, USA.
Jignesh K
JK
Patel
Vikram
V
Chabra
Sam
S
Parnia
D002307:Cardiography, Impedance / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods* / Q000401:mortality; D016887:Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods* / Q000401:mortality; D004554:Electric Countershock; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006801:Humans; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D015996:Survival Rate; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000401:mortality / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*