More effective method needed.

• Position: CPR

A new way to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation that promises to be more effective than standard CPR because it increases nourishing blood flow through the heart by 25% over the current method has been developed by a biomedical engineer at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.

The technique is needed desperately because conventional CPR has a success rate of five to 10%, depending on how fast rescuers are able to respond and how well the procedure is performed. For every one minute of delay, the resuscitation rate decreases by 10%. "In other words, at 10 minutes, the resuscitation is absolutely ineffective," points out Leslie Geddes, professor emeritus in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering.

"Any medical procedure that had that low a success rate would be abandoned right away, but the alternative is not very good, either: Don't do CPR and the person is going to die." Geddes has developed a CPR alternative, called "only rhythmic abdominal compression," or OAC-CPR, which works by pushing on the abdomen instead of the chest.

"There are major problems with standard CPR," Geddes explains. "One is the risk of breaking ribs if you push too hard but, if you don't push hard, you won't save the person. Another problem is the risk of transferring infection with mouth-to-mouth breathing." The new CPR method eliminates both risks.

In standard chest-compression CPR, which has been in practice since the 1960s, the rescuer pushes on the chest and blows into the subject's mouth twice for every 30 chest compressions. However, the risk of infection is so great that many doctors and nurses often refuse to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. In one study, 45% of physicians and 80% of nurses said they would refuse to administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a stranger. "This is the real world that nobody knows about, and it's a sobering thought," Geddes states. It is not necessary to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with OAC-CPR.

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The American Heart Association requires...