Out-of-Hospital Transcutaneous Pacing by Emergency Medical Technicians in Patients with Asystolic Cardiac Arrest

Abstract

Transcutaneous pacing appears to offer no benefit in patients with asystolic cardiac arrest, even when it is performed as early as possible by EMTs in the field. Our data suggest that the widespread implementation of early transcutaneous pacing for out-of-hospital asystolic cardiac arrest would be ineffective.