A report by the University of Michigan claims that only 7.6 percent victims survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest
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CPR increases survival chances
However, these victims are likely to survive at a greater pace if given an emergency procedure like Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
“Increasing bystander CPR rates, increasing the awareness and use of devices to shock the heart, and keeping paramedics on scene until they restore a person's pulse needs to occur if we are ever going to change our dismal survival rate,” said lead author Dr Comilla Sasson, a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar and emergency medicine physician at the U-M Health System.
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency medical procedure for a victim of cardiac arrest or, in some circumstances, respiratory arrest. The procedure helps in maintaining the flow of oxygenated blood to the brain and the heart, thereby delaying tissue death for successful resuscitation.
Study details
To determine the success rate of CPR, researchers examined data based on 142,740 patients from 79 studies between January 1950 and August 2008.
Analysis of the data revealed that half of the cardiac arrests were witnessed by a bystander, however, only 32 percent or about one in every three people receive CPR or artificial respiration.
Regardless of a small proportion of survivors, researchers noted the cardiac arrest victims who received CPR from a bystander or an emergency medical services provider, were more likely to survive.
"Our study shows that patients with a heart rhythm that can be shocked, or who have bystander CPR or a pulse restored at the scene have a much greater chance of survival," said Dr Sasson.
Researchers said that given grim overall rate of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival, a huge amount need to be spent on heart research to evolve the field of cardiac and cerebral resuscitation.
The study’s findings are published in the Journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.
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