Cardiac Arrest Survival Statistics

We’re getting better with our management of out of hospital cardiac arrest via quality bystander CPR. The majority of this credit should go to the organizations such as the AHA who puts together programs taught by firefighters, paramedics and EMT’s (forgive me if I screw up the semantics) to health care personnel and the lay public which empower those attendees to save lives with their training.

No matter how you look at it, the numbers are still pretty bad, but they’re getting better. 8.8% of cardiac arrest patients lived to be discharged from the hospital. Some nuisances behind those numbers include no quality of life being discussed, nor a breakdown of the etiology behind the arrests by subgroups. Nonetheless, the authors did a great job of compiling data from many different studies to give us an idea of what we can expect when our patients roll into our emergency departments and ICUs. 

Only 22% survive long enough to be admitted to the hospital.
In the last decade we’ve improved the survival to hospital discharge and 1 year survival. We should all pat ourselves on the back to some extent bc were the ones who do and will take care of these patients. I know that we sometimes prolong death, but we’ve all had some big wins that have given us purpose and made our hearts full with satisfaction for what we’re trained to do. A hat tip to the authors.

-EJ

Yan, S., Gan, Y., Jiang, N. et al. The global survival rate among adult out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients who received cardiopulmonary resuscitation: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Crit Care 24, 61 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13054-020-2773-2

Link to FULL FREE Article

Link to Abstract

Yan, S., Gan, Y., Jiang, N. et al. The global survival rate among adult out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients who received cardiopulmonary resuscitation: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Crit Care 24, 61 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13054-020-2773-2

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Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation: ACLS in the CVICU

Yesterday, @yournursingeducator created a great post on Code Blue tips. @fobiesme asked a very legitimate question regarding how to proceed in patients who are s/p bypass or any open chest situation in the CVICU. This was something I wondered about myself even as someone who taught ACLS for the AHA at a point in my life. It was hard to find a solid answer. Fortunately, as of 2017, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons put forth this consensus statement and algorithm on how to handle cardiac arrest situations in the CVICU population. Since this is relatively new data (only 2 years ago), I understand that the CVICU nurses out there may not be familiar with nor using this particular algorithm. What we did in my shop is that we printed this out with all its pretty colors, laminated it, and placed it on the code carts. Fortunately, this is entirely FREE!

-EJ

Link to full FREE PDF

Dunning J, Levine A, Ley J; STS Task Force. The Society of Thoracic Surgeons expert consensus for the resuscitation of patients who arrest after cardiac surgery. Ann Thorac Surg 2017;103:1005–20.

Although great care has been taken to ensure that the information in this post is accurate, eddyjoemd, LLC shall not be held responsible or in any way liable for the continued accuracy of the information, or for any errors, omissions or inaccuracies, or for any consequences arising therefrom.

HYPERION: 33 vs 37 for targeted temperature management in cardiac arrest

I am going to be all over the place with this takedown. I’m a bit upset at what may happen as a result of this publication. I really wanted it to be a good study but it’s not. You’ll see why shortly. 

The good news is that there’s no difference in adverse effects to the patient by cooling them, just a lot of added cost. That’s my tidbit for those physicians who are going to take this data and run with it as if it’s gospel. 

My practice prior to this article was to do a normothermia protocol of 36 degrees after the NEJM trial from 2013. Is this one going to change my ways... from the outset it appeared as if it will, but, spoiler alert, it won’t. 

The objective of this study was to sort out whether we should cool our patients to 33 or normothermia of 37 in patients who suffer cardiac arrest with a non-shockable rhythm. 

Within the methods, they excluded patients who were down for >10 minutes prior to chest compressions. This is hard to determine many times as families are never quite sure. I complement the 25 ICU’s who recruited 584 patients in this study. The fact that they allowed patients to be recruited for 300 minutes from their arrest time gives us insight that you don’t have to make the determination immediately on whether you have to cool the patient. Then again, such a high percentage did poorly that we don’t really know what’s the best time to get started. 

In how they rewarmed patients, it’s important to note from a practice standpoint that the sedation was tapered when the temp got above 36. That’s a nursing question I often hear. 

Within their outcomes, the primary was a favorable 90-day Cerebral Performance Scale where they wanted to see in particular if the patients had either a score of 1 or 2. A score of 1means Good cerebral performance or minor disability. A score of 2 means moderate disability. They called the patients or families on the telephone for follow up. People lie. I wish they would’ve had someone lay eyes on the patients. But people lie in both groups so this should be no big deal. should be. But it isn’t. You’ll see why. 

The secondary outcomes were all the typical ICU stuff: mortality, days on the vent, LOS in ICU and hospital, infections and adverse hematologic events. We know that cooling causes degrees of coagulopathy. 

With in the results, the authors assessed 2723 patients over the course of 4 years. That’s A LOT of cardiac arrests! Then again, 15 ICU’s. I imagine they’re all busy institutions. 

I was happy to see that an intravascular cooling catheter was only used in 14.8% of patients. I have always thought that they were a little too invasive for my tastes, especially if/when they start oozing. 

When looking at the actual outcomes, the best case scenarios still only had a 10.2% incidence of a CPC of 1 or 2. This is not a cure, team. Patients still do terribly. It’s helpful to let families know what to expect when a patient arrives in our ICUs in cardiac arrest. 

More than 80% of patients died in both groups. 81.3% vs. 83.2 in the 33 vs. 37 respectively. All of the secondary outcomes showed no difference. 

The supplementary text provides data as to how they handled withdrawal of care. Imaging was curiously nowhere to be seen anywhere in the paper. They do not mention abnormal CTs or any type of MRIs anywhere in this paper nor the supplementary text. I would be curious if they found anyone with loss of gray-white differentiation who did well. I wonder if they omitted that information so that they could collect a large enough sample size and families wouldn’t withdraw prior to completion of the study. Hmmmmm.  

I respect the heck out of the authors in the way they disclosed their limitations. They admitted that an outcome change in a single patient would make the primary outcome not significant. What am I supposed to do with that?!?! If one person lied about how well they were doing over the phone it would change the conclusions of the entire 4 years of work! This is why I don’t do research. 

The other caveat to the study is that they let the patients in the 37 degree group develop fevers. Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t a subgroup analysis in the 33 vs 36 study from several years ago show that avoiding fever is the most important component in these patients? In my practice I discuss with the nurses that we need to be prepared for the fever and have meds on the medication list, not for if it will happen, but rather for when it will happen. Considering the study got started in 2014, this is something that hopefully they knew going into the study. 

I’m sticking with 36 in my practice. What do you all think? 

A hat tip to the authors. 

-EJ

Although great care has been taken to ensure that the information in this post is accurate, eddyjoemd, LLC shall not be held responsible or in any way liable for the continued accuracy of the information, or for any errors, omissions or inaccuracies, or for any consequences arising therefrom.