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Terence D. Valenzuela, MD, MPH

JAMA. 2003;289:1434-1436.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Few medical phenomena engage the popular and medical imaginations as completely as resuscitation of the patient with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Application of defibrillator paddles to the chest wall, administering an electrical countershock, and restoring cardiac rhythm and circulation is depicted in films and on television as a dramatic, often lifesaving event.

The medical reality, however, is that survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is uncommon. Despite decades of research and advances in resuscitation, less than 5% of patients survive out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in the United States.^1-2 These outcomes have prompted the suggestion that new approaches for treatment of cardiac arrest due to ventricular fibrillation should be developed.³ In this issue of THE JOURNAL, Wik and colleagues⁴ report the results of a prospective, randomized comparison of manual cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) prior to defibrillation vs traditional immediate defibrillation in patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

A substantial proportion of . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Author Affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Arizona, Tucson.

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Delaying Defibrillation to Give Basic Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation to Patients With Out-of-Hospital Ventricular Fibrillation: A Randomized Trial
Lars Wik, Trond Boye Hansen, Frode Fylling, Thorbjørn Steen, Per Vaagenes, Bjørn H. Auestad, and Petter Andreas Steen
JAMA. 2003;289(11):1389-1395.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

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