Emergency Room Resuscitation of Patients with Cardiac Arrest outside Hospital

Abstract

Resuscitation was attempted in 319 patients brought to hospital with cardiac arrest during a 5-year period. Primary successful results were achieved in 50 patients (15.7%). Twelve patients were long-term survivors (3.4%), 10 of whom had normal brain function, whereas 2 had mild cerebral dysfunction. To improve prognostication in patients with initially successful resuscitation, Bayes' theorem was applied using 4 clinical findings after 24 hours' treatment: reactions to painful stimuli, pupillary size, light reactions and BP, Bayes' theorem as well as coma depth after 24 hours gave valuable information regarding individual prognosis.