Cardiac Arrest

There is concern about the incidence of cardiac arrests suffered by patients in hospital. This is due to the fact that defibrillation procedures could often not be carried out within the first two critical minutes.

A Norwegian study:

Our findings indicate that defibrillation should have priority during the first 3 minutes of VF/VT. Later, patients benefit from CPR in conjunction with defibrillation. Patients presenting with non-shockable rhythms have a grave prognosis, and the outcome was not associated with time to BLS or CPR quality.

VF/VT=ventricular fibrillation/pulseless ventricular tachycardia
CPR=cardiopulmonary resuscitation
BLS=basic life support


Ref:
The early minutes of in-hospital cardiac arrest: Shock or CPR? A population based prospective study
Eirik Skogvoll and Trond Nordseth