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William F. Rutherford, MD; Bruce Sherman, MD
University Hospitals of Cleveland (Ohio)

JAMA. 1989;261(11):1580.

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

To the Editor. —

Taffet et al¹ present interesting and controversial data regarding the outcome of in-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The study itself was well done, and the data were, for the most part, analyzed adequately for possible confounding factors, such as the duration of resuscitation efforts and preexisting health condition. The authors' call to expend greater effort identifying those patients likely to benefit from CPR at the time of admission is laudable. However, they make two critical mistakes with interpretation of the data and give us a faulty recommendation.

The authors remark on the disparity in best mental status between the younger and older cohorts after CPR and infer that this difference is due to the amount of neurological function recovered. However, since data regarding mental status before the cardiopulmonary arrest are not presented, no such inference can be made. Recovery cannot be judged in the absence of . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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