This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Kudenchuk, P. J. Articles by Rea, T. D. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Kudenchuk, P. J. Articles by Rea, T. D. Related Collections CPR and emergency cardiac care Epidemiology

(Circulation. 2008;118:328-330.)
© 2008 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorial

Cardiac Arrest

Survivors or Still Victims?

Peter J. Kudenchuk, MD; Carol E. Fahrenbruch, MSPH; Thomas D. Rea, MD, MPH

From the Division of Cardiology (P.J.K.) and Department of Medicine (T.D.R.), University of Washington, Seattle, Wash; and Seattle and King County Department of Public Health, Emergency Medical Services Division (P.J.K., C.E.F., T.D.R.), Seattle, Wash.

Correspondence to Peter J. Kudenchuk, MD, Division of Cardiology, Box 356422, University of Washington, 1959 NE Pacific St, Seattle, WA 98195-6422. E-mail kudenchu@u.washington.edu

Key Words: Editorials • cardiopulmonary resuscitation • cardiovascular diseases • vital statistics

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

Worldwide, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest remains a life-losing proposition for the vast majority of its victims. In the United States, prehospital emergency medical services (EMS) personnel attend an estimated 273 000 persons with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (defined as circulatory or pulseless collapse) each year.¹ Survival to hospital discharge from all presenting rhythms of cardiac arrest remains strikingly poor (median survival 6.4%) but varies widely across communities.² The reasons for this wide variation in outcome are likely due in part to community differences in patient characteristics, bystander involvement, and EMS structure and care. This variation is also confounded by the nonuniform manner in which cardiac arrest itself is ascertained and reported.¹

Article p 389

Seventeen years ago, representatives from the American Heart Association, the European Resuscitation Council, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and the Australian Resuscitation Council met to establish a uniform means of defining and reporting out-of-hospital resuscitation. The intent of the resulting Utstein Style reporting template was to lay a common foundation that could characterize cardiac arrest, benchmark care within a community, and facilitate comparisons across systems or communities, all in an effort to improve outcomes from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.³ Using the Utstein schema, one begins with the population served by EMS, tabulates all cardiac arrests attended by EMS, and excludes those in whom resuscitation was not attempted or for whom cardiac arrest was due to obvious noncardiac causes. The focus of the template is the remaining group of patients with cardiac arrest of presumed cardiac origin in . . . [Full Text of this Article]

This article has been cited by other articles:

				S. Berger Gasping, Survival, and the Science of Resuscitation Circulation, December 9, 2008; 118(24): 2495 - 2497. [Full Text] [PDF]