New EMS Technique Saves More Patients.

PositionSUDDEN CARDIAC ARREST - Emergency medical service and laryngeal tubes

A change in the type of breathing tube paramedics use to resuscitate patients with sudden cardiac arrest can improve the odds of survival significantly and save thousands of lives, shows a study from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. More than 90% of Americans who experience sudden cardiac arrest die before, or soon after, reaching a hospital.

"During resuscitation, opening the airway and having proper access to it is a key factor for the survival of someone who goes into cardiac arrest outside of a hospital, but one of the burning questions in prehospital emergency care has been: which is the best airway device?," says study coauthor George Sopko, program director in the Division of Cardiovascular Sciences.

This study is the largest of its kind to test oxygen delivery methods used by firefighters, emergency medical service providers, and paramedics. It is the first to show that a particular airway intervention can affect patient survival rates positively. "This study demonstrated that, just by managing the airway well in the early stage of resuscitation, we could save more than 10,000 lives every year," notes Sopko.

EMS providers treat the majority of the 400,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests each year. For over three decades, their standard-of-care technique for resuscitation has been endotracheal intubation--the insertion of a plastic tube...

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