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In a randomized trial involving 8014 patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, the use of epinephrine resulted in a significantly higher rate of 30-day survival than placebo but not a higher rate of survival with a favorable neurologic outcome.

In this randomized trial involving patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest without ST-segment elevation on postresuscitation electrocardiography, no benefit was found for immediate cardiac catherization as compared with delayed or selective catherization.

Patients who had cardiac arrest without ST-segment elevation were assigned to undergo either immediate coronary angiography or delayed coronary angiography (after neurologic recovery). All patients underwent PCI if indicated. There was no significant between-group difference in overall survival at 90 days.

In a randomized trial, patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest who received extracorporeal CPR and those who received conventional CPR had similar results for survival and favorable neurologic outcomes.

An increasingly recognized prognostic factor for out-of-hospital-cardiac-arrest (OHCA) patients is the ischemia-reperfusion injury after restored blood circulation. Endothelial injury is common in patients resuscitated from cardiac arrest and is associated with poor outcome. This study was designed to investigate if iloprost infusion, a prostacyclin analogue, reduces endothelial damage in OHCA patients. 50 patients were randomized in a placebo controlled double-blinded trial and allocated 1:2 to 48-hours iloprost infusion, (1 ng/kg/min) or placebo (saline infusion). Endothelial biomarkers (soluble thrombomodulin (sTM), sE-selectin, syndecan-1, soluble vascular endothelial growth factor (sVEGF), vascular endothelial cadherine (VEcad), nucleosomes) and sympathoadrenal activation (epinephrine/norepinephrine) from baseline to 48 and 96-hours were evaluated. Iloprost infusion did not influence endothelial biomarkers by the 48-hour endpoint. A rebound effect was observed with higher biomarker plasma values in the iloprost group (sTM p=0.02; Syndecan p=0.004; nucleosomes p<0.001; VEcad p<0.03) after 96-hours. There was a significant difference in 180-day mortality in favor of placebo. There was no difference regarding total adverse events between groups (p=0.73). Two patients were withdrawn in the iloprost group due to hypotension. The administration of low-dose iloprost (1ng/kg/min) to OHCA patients did not significantly influence endothelial biomarkers as measured by the 48- hour endpoint. A rebound effect was however observed in the 96-hour statistical model, with increasing endothelial biomarker levels after cessation of the iloprost-infusion.

This study of targeted temperature interventions in 295 children who were comatose after cardiac arrest showed no significant difference between the hypothermia group (33.0°C) and the normothermia group (36.8°C) with respect to 1-year survival with a good functional outcome. Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in children often results in death or in poor long-term functional outcome in survivors. 1 – 3 In 2002, two trials involving adults showed that therapeutic hypothermia improved neurologic outcomes in comatose survivors after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest with ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia. 4 , 5 International guidelines recommend therapeutic hypothermia for adults with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest who have similar characteristics. 6 , 7 Recently, another trial involving adults after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest showed that therapeutic hypothermia with the use of a target temperature of 33°C, as compared with actively maintained therapeutic normothermia (36°C), did not improve outcomes. 8 The fundamental difference between this . . .

Among patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) and ventricular fibrillation, more than half present with refractory ventricular fibrillation unresponsive to initial standard advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) treatment. We did the first randomised clinical trial in the USA of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO)-facilitated resuscitation versus standard ACLS treatment in patients with OHCA and refractory ventricular fibrillation. For this phase 2, single centre, open-label, adaptive, safety and efficacy randomised clinical trial, we included adults aged 18–75 years presenting to the University of Minnesota Medical Center (MN, USA) with OHCA and refractory ventricular fibrillation, no return of spontaneous circulation after three shocks, automated cardiopulmonary resuscitation with a Lund University Cardiac Arrest System, and estimated transfer time shorter than 30 min. Patients were randomly assigned to early ECMO-facilitated resuscitation or standard ACLS treatment on hospital arrival by use of a secure schedule generated with permuted blocks of randomly varying block sizes. Allocation concealment was achieved by use of a randomisation schedule that required scratching off an opaque layer to reveal assignment. The primary outcome was survival to hospital discharge. Secondary outcomes were safety, survival, and functional assessment at hospital discharge and at 3 months and 6 months after discharge. All analyses were done on an intention-to-treat basis. The study qualified for exception from informed consent (21 Code of Federal Regulations 50.24). The ARREST trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03880565. Between Aug 8, 2019, and June 14, 2020, 36 patients were assessed for inclusion. After exclusion of six patients, 30 were randomly assigned to standard ACLS treatment (n=15) or to early ECMO-facilitated resuscitation (n=15). One patient in the ECMO-facilitated resuscitation group withdrew from the study before discharge. The mean age was 59 years (range 36–73), and 25 (83%) of 30 patients were men. Survival to hospital discharge was observed in one (7%) of 15 patients (95% credible interval 1·6–30·2) in the standard ACLS treatment group versus six (43%) of 14 patients (21·3–67·7) in the early ECMO-facilitated resuscitation group (risk difference 36·2%, 3·7–59·2; posterior probability of ECMO superiority 0·9861). The study was terminated at the first preplanned interim analysis by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute after unanimous recommendation from the Data Safety Monitoring Board after enrolling 30 patients because the posterior probability of ECMO superiority exceeded the prespecified monitoring boundary. Cumulative 6-month survival was significantly better in the early ECMO group than in the standard ACLS group. No unanticipated serious adverse events were observed. Early ECMO-facilitated resuscitation for patients with OHCA and refractory ventricular fibrillation significantly improved survival to hospital discharge compared with standard ACLS treatment. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

In a trial involving patients with coma after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, a strategy targeting mild hypercapnia for 24 hours did not improve neurologic outcomes at 6 months as compared with targeted normocapnia.

In this trial, patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest received amiodarone, lidocaine, or placebo for shock-refractory ventricular fibrillation or pulseless ventricular tachycardia. There were no significant between-group differences in survival to hospital discharge. Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is responsible for more than 300,000 deaths each year in North America. 1 Many out-of-hospital cardiac arrests are attributable to ventricular fibrillation or pulseless ventricular tachycardia. Although ventricular fibrillation or pulseless ventricular tachycardia is regarded as the most treatable presentation of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest because of its responsiveness to shock, 2 most defibrillation attempts do not result in sustained return of spontaneous circulation. 3 Ventricular fibrillation or pulseless ventricular tachycardia commonly persists or recurs after shock, and there is a significant inverse relationship between the duration of ventricular fibrillation or pulseless ventricular tachycardia, or the frequency of acute recurrences, and . . .

PurposeWe aimed to determine the feasibility of targeting low-normal or high-normal mean arterial pressure (MAP) after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) and its effect on markers of neurological injury.MethodsIn the Carbon dioxide, Oxygen and Mean arterial pressure After Cardiac Arrest and REsuscitation (COMACARE) trial, we used a 23 factorial design to randomly assign patients after OHCA and resuscitation to low-normal or high-normal levels of arterial carbon dioxide tension, to normoxia or moderate hyperoxia, and to low-normal or high-normal MAP. In this paper we report the results of the low-normal (65–75 mmHg) vs. high-normal (80–100 mmHg) MAP comparison. The primary outcome was the serum concentration of neuron-specific enolase (NSE) at 48 h after cardiac arrest. The feasibility outcome was the difference in MAP between the groups. Secondary outcomes included S100B protein and cardiac troponin (TnT) concentrations, electroencephalography (EEG) findings, cerebral oxygenation and neurological outcome at 6 months after cardiac arrest.ResultsWe recruited 123 patients and included 120 in the final analysis. We found a clear separation in MAP between the groups (p < 0.001). The median (interquartile range) NSE concentration at 48 h was 20.6 µg/L (15.2–34.9 µg/L) in the low-normal MAP group and 22.0 µg/L (13.6–30.9 µg/L) in the high-normal MAP group, p = 0.522. We found no differences in the secondary outcomes.ConclusionsTargeting a specific range of MAP was feasible during post-resuscitation intensive care. However, the blood pressure level did not affect the NSE concentration at 48 h after cardiac arrest, nor any secondary outcomes.