title: Mechanical chest compressions in the coronary catheterization laboratory - do not hesitate to go step further!
abstract: Authors Wagner et al. in your journal demonstrated effectiveness of mechanical chest compressions in the coronary catheterization laboratory to facilitate coronary intervention and survival in patients requiring prolonged resuscitation efforts. We dare to comment on this article and advocate to use mechanical chest compressions only as a bridge to extracorporeal membrane oxygenation to completely substitute failed circulation and enable percutaneous coronary intervention or other procedures to treat the cause of cardiac arrest.
authors.affiliation: 2nd Department of Medicine, Cardiovascular Medicine, 1st Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague and General University Hospital in Prague, U Nemocnice 2, Prague 2, 128 00, Czech Republic. jan.belohlavek@vfn.cz.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bělohlávek
authors.affiliation: 2nd Department of Medicine, Cardiovascular Medicine, 1st Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague and General University Hospital in Prague, U Nemocnice 2, Prague 2, 128 00, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Tomáš
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kovárník
mesh_terms: D016887:Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation / Q000379:methods*; D006323:Heart Arrest / Q000628:therapy*; D006336:Heart Massage / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D062645:Percutaneous Coronary Intervention; D013909:Thorax