ad info

CNNin
 MAIN PAGE
 WORLD
 ASIANOW
 U.S.
 LOCAL
 POLITICS
 WEATHER
 BUSINESS
 SPORTS
 TECHNOLOGY
 NATURE
 ENTERTAINMENT
 BOOKS
 TRAVEL
 FOOD
 HEALTH
 AIDS
 Alternative
 Cancer
 Diet & Fitness
 Heart
 Men
 Seniors
 Women
 STYLE
 IN-DEPTH

 custom news
 Headline News brief
 daily almanac
 CNN networks
 CNN programs
 on-air transcripts
 news quiz

  CNN WEB SITES:
CNN Websites
 TIME INC. SITES:
 MORE SERVICES:
 video on demand
 video archive
 audio on demand
 news email services
 free email accounts
 desktop headlines
 pointcast
 pagenet

 DISCUSSION:
 message boards
 chat
 feedback

 SITE GUIDES:
 help
 contents
 search

 FASTER ACCESS:
 europe
 japan

 WEB SERVICES:
Health

Study: Fast access to defibrillators increases survival after cardiac arrest

graphic
 ALSO:
Mayo: What might save you if you go into cardiac arrest?

Mayo Clinic Heart Center

(CNN) -- People who suffer cardiac arrest outside of a hospital have a 33 percent better chance of survival if the emergency medical services responding bring a defibrillator to the scene within eight minutes, according to a Canadian study appearing in the April 7 Journal of the American Medical Association.

Defibrillators use an electric current to stop the uncoordinated series of contractions in the heart that can occur when a person suffers cardiac arrest.

Researchers, led by Dr. Ian G. Stiell of the Ottawa Hospital Loeb Health Research Institute in Ontario, looked at the impact of a rapid defibrillation program on the survival rates of cardiac arrest victims.

The rapid defibrillator program:

  • reduced emergency services dispatch time;
  • deployed ambulances more efficiently;
  • and had firefighters perform defibrillation.

These changes resulted in emergency services reaching cardiac arrest victims in less than eight minutes 92.5 percent of the time, which was an increase from 76.7 percent prior to the implementation of the program.

The study, called the Ontario Pre-hospital Advanced Life Support (OPAL), consisted of two parts:

  • Phase I focused on the 36 months prior to the implementation of the rapid defibrillation program.
  • Phase II focused on the 12 months after the start of the program in communities with emergency services with basic life support and defibrillation capabilities.

OPAL set out to look at the effectiveness of various pre-hospital interventions for patients with cardiac arrest, trauma and critical illnesses.

The researchers followed cardiac arrest patients who were treated first by emergency medical personnel responding to the scene. The study was conducted in 19 urban and suburban Ontario communities.

According to the authors, after the program was established 79.7 percent of those who were resuscitated, and lived at least a year, had "very good" cerebral performance scores and functional status.

The researchers contend the expense of such a program is worth the gain in the number of lives saved.

"We estimate the crude start-up cost of establishing the rapid defibrillation programs was approximately $36,500 per 100,000 residents and the annual cost would be small," the authors wrote. "Hence, we believe that this study has demonstrated that the implementation of a rapid defibrillation program is an effective and inexpensive approach to significantly improving out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival."


CNN SPECIAL SECTION:
Health - The Heart

RELATED STORIES:
Defibrillator training coming to workplace
February 27, 1999
Heart help: Defibrillators becoming more common
November 13, 1998
Study: Heart attacks just as likely to occur in early evening
July 7, 1998
Study: New 'super aspirin' cuts heart attack risk
June 22, 1998

RELATED SITES:
Journal of the American Medical Association
American Heart Association National Center
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.

LATEST HEALTH STORIES:
Affordable drug reduces mother-to-child HIV transmission, study says
A new risk factor for heart disease
The HMO debate: Who decides emergency care?
Tick-borne illness known to infect dogs found in humans
 LATEST HEADLINES:
SEARCH CNN.com
Enter keyword(s)   go    help

Back to the top   © 2001 Cable News Network. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.