Doctors who perform CPR for at least 30 minutes on patients whose hearts have stopped beating have a significantly better chance of saving their lives than if they spend only the standard time – about 12 minutes – on resuscitation attempts, new research shows.
University of Michigan researchers who conducted the new study noted there isn't a clear guideline for how long doctors should perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but generally found longer attempts can increase patients’ survival odds.
Most cardiac arrest patients are resuscitated within 12 minutes on average and many clinicians are reluctant to perform longer attempts. But the new research found that for some patients, successful resuscitation only occurred after a half-hour or more.
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What’s more, the new study found patients who survived longer cardiac arrest times did not have substantially worse neurological function when they were discharged from the hospital.
"Our findings suggest an opportunity for improving care in this high-risk population,” said Dr. Zachary D. Goldberger, a cardiologist and assistant professor at the University of Washington, who led the study published online in the journal the Lancet. “Overall, it may involve standardizing the time required for continuing resuscitation attempts prior to decisions regarding termination of efforts."
For the study, researchers examined national records on more than 64,000 cardiac arrest patients between 2000 and 2008. While most patients were successfully resuscitated after a short period of time, investigators found about 15 percent who survived needed at least 30 minutes to achieve a pulse.
"We want to emphasize that our findings cannot identify an optimal duration for which to resuscitate patients," said UM cardiologist Dr. Brahmajee K. Nallamothu, one of the study’s authors.
Each year, cardiac arrest strikes about 200,000 hospital patients and only half survive.
SPECIAL: These 4 Things Happen Right Before a Heart Attack — Read More.