PubMed · 4813951
The source did not provide an abstract. Follow the original record for more information.
Explore connections, maps & timelines
F Knüchel. 1974-02-22. [Electric countershock].. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4813951/
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.
KEEP EXPLORING
STUDY OBJECTIVE: Successful resuscitation of cardiac arrest depends partly on the time of first defibrillation. An accurate, practical method of measuring this time has not been devised. We attempted to determine the interval from receipt of a call by emergency medical services personnel to first defibrillation (total defibrillation interval) with synchronized clocks between computer-aided dispatch operations and an event-recording defibrillator. DESIGN: A 7-month prospective study measuring the total defibrillation interval. An automated code summary was to be submitted for each participant. SETTING: An urban, all-advanced life support, public utility model system. PARTICIPANTS: All primary ventricular fibrillation patients seen during the study period. RESULTS: Ninety-two patients met study criteria. Data are presented as median (interquartile range). The total defibrillation interval was 9.8 minutes (7.9 to 11.8 minutes). The call-receipt-to-vehicle-at-scene interval was 5.98 minutes (4.4 to 7.3 minutes). The vehicle-at-scene-to-defibrillation interval was 3.6 minutes (2.5 to 4.6 minutes). CONCLUSION: The use of synchronized clocks in automated event-recording systems may provide a method of accurately measuring the time elapsed before defibrillation.
STUDY OBJECTIVE: Although some studies demonstrate otherwise, we hypothesized that metaanalysis would demonstrate a reduction in the relative risk of mortality when basic life support (BLS) providers can defibrillate out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients. DESIGN: Metaanalysis of studies meeting the following criteria: single-tier or two-tier emergency medical service (EMS) system, survival to hospital discharge for patients in ventricular fibrillation, and manual and/or automatic external defibrillators. The alpha error rate was .05. RESULTS: Seven trials qualified for metaanalysis. Across all trials, the risk of mortality for BLS care with defibrillation versus that without was .915 (P = .0003). Separate subset analyses of single-tier and two-tier EMS systems demonstrated similar results. CONCLUSION: BLS defibrillation can reduce the relative risk of death for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest victims in ventricular fibrillation. Weaknesses in individual study designs and regional clustering limit the strength of this metaanalysis and conclusion.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.