Tag Archives: Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

Interdisciplinary ICU cardiac arrest debriefing improves survival outcomes. (Emrath)

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Wolfe H, Zebuhr C, Topjian AA, et al. Interdisciplinary ICU cardiac arrest debriefing improves survival outcomes*. Crit Care Med. 2014 Jul;42(7):1688-95.

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OBJECTIVE: In-hospital cardiac arrest is an important public health problem. High-quality resuscitation improves survival but is difficult to achieve. Our objective is to evaluate the effectiveness of a novel, interdisciplinary, postevent quantitative debriefing program to improve survival outcomes after in-hospital pediatric chest compression events.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS: Single-center prospective interventional study of children who received chest compressions between December 2008 and June 2012 in the ICU.

INTERVENTIONS: Structured, quantitative, audiovisual, interdisciplinary debriefing of chest compression events with front-line providers.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Primary outcome was survival to hospital discharge. Secondary outcomes included survival of event (return of spontaneous circulation for ≥ 20 min) and favorable neurologic outcome. Primary resuscitation quality outcome was a composite variable, termed “excellent cardiopulmonary resuscitation,” prospectively defined as a chest compression depth ≥ 38 mm, rate ≥ 100/min, ≤ 10% of chest compressions with leaning, and a chest compression fraction > 90% during a given 30-second epoch. Quantitative data were available only for patients who are 8 years old or older. There were 119 chest compression events (60 control and 59 interventional). The intervention was associated with a trend toward improved survival to hospital discharge on both univariate analysis (52% vs 33%, p = 0.054) and after controlling for confounders (adjusted odds ratio, 2.5; 95% CI, 0.91-6.8; p = 0.075), and it significantly increased survival with favorable neurologic outcome on both univariate (50% vs 29%, p = 0.036) and multivariable analyses (adjusted odds ratio, 2.75; 95% CI, 1.01-7.5; p = 0.047). Cardiopulmonary resuscitation epochs for patients who are 8 years old or older during the debriefing period were 5.6 times more likely to meet targets of excellent cardiopulmonary resuscitation (95% CI, 2.9-10.6; p < 0.01).

CONCLUSION: Implementation of an interdisciplinary, postevent quantitative debriefing program was significantly associated with improved cardiopulmonary resuscitation quality and survival with favorable neurologic outcome.

Early oxygenation and ventilation measurements after pediatric cardiac arrest: lack of association with outcome. (Dugan)

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Crit Care Med. 2013 Jun;41(6):1534-1542. PMID: 23552509

OBJECTIVES: To explore oxygenation and ventilation status early after cardiac arrest in infants and children. We hypothesize that hyperoxia is common and associated with worse outcome after pediatric cardiac arrest.

DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study.

SETTING: Fifteen hospitals within the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network.

PATIENTS: Children who suffered a cardiac arrest event and survived for at least 6 hoursafter return of circulation.

INTERVENTIONS: None.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Analysis of 195 events revealed that abnormalities in oxygenation andventilation are common during the initial 6 hours after pediatric cardiac arrest. Hyperoxia was frequent, affecting 54% of patients. Normoxia was documented in 34% and hypoxia in 22% of patients. These percentages account for a 10% overlap of patients who had both hyperoxia and hypoxia. Ventilation status was more evenly distributed with hyperventilation observed in 38%, normoventilation in 29%, and hypoventilation in 46%, with a 13% overlap of patients who had both hyperventilation and hypoventilation. Derangements in bothoxygenation and ventilation were common early after cardiac arrest such that both normoxia and normocarbia were documented in only 25 patients (13%). Neitheroxygenation nor ventilation status was associated with outcome. After controlling for potential confounders, arrest location and rhythm were significantly associated with worse outcome; however, hyperoxia was not (odds ratio for good outcome, 1.02 [0.46, 2.84]; p = 0.96).

CONCLUSIONS: Despite recent resuscitation guidelines that advocate maintenance of normoxia and normoventilation after pediatric cardiac arrest, this is uncommonly achieved in practice. Although we did not demonstrate an associationbetween hyperoxia and worse outcome, the small proportion of patients kept within normal ranges limited our power. Preclinical data suggesting potential harm with hyperoxia remain compelling, and further investigation, including prospective, large studies involving robust recording of physiological derangements, is necessary to further advance our understanding of this important topic.

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The culture of dysthanasia: attempting CPR in terminally ill children. (from Pediatrics, March 2013 – Vats)

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Pediatrics. 2013 Mar;131(3):572-80. doi: 10.1542/peds.2012-0393. Epub 2013 Feb 4. PMID: 23382437

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Both dying children and their families are treated with disrespect when the presumption of consent to cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) applies to all hospitalized children, regardless of prognosis and the likely efficacy of CPR. This “opt-out” approach to CPR fails to appreciate the nuances of the special parent-child relationship and the moral and emotional complexity of enlisting parents in decisions to withhold CPR from their children. The therapeutic goal of CPR is not merely to resume spontaneous circulation, but rather it is to provide circulation to vital organs to allow for treatment of the underlying proximal and distal etiologies of cardiopulmonary arrest. When the treating providers agree that attempting CPR is highly unlikely to achieve the therapeutic goal or will merely prolong dying, we should not burden parents with the decision to forgo CPR. Rather, physicians should carry the primary professional and moral responsibility for the decision and use a model of informed assent from parents, allowing for respectful disagreement. As emphasized in the palliative care literature, we recommend a directive and collaborative goal-oriented approach to conversations about limiting resuscitation, in which physicians provide explicit recommendations that are in alignment with the goals and hopes of the family and emphasize the therapeutic indications for CPR. Through this approach, we hope to help parents understand that “doing everything” for their dying child means providing medical therapies that ameliorate suffering and foster the intimacy of the parent-child relationship in the final days of a child’s life, making the dying process more humane.