• Johannes Blumenstein, Jürgen Leick, Christoph Liebetrau, Joerg Kempfert, Luise Gaede, Sebastian Groß, Marcel Krug, Alexander Berkowitsch, Holger Nef, Andreas Rolf, Matthias Arlt, Thomas Walther, Christian W Hamm, and Helge Möllmann.
• 1 Department of Cardiology, Kerckhoff Heart and Thorax Center, Germany.
• Eur Heart J Acute Cardiovasc Care. 2016 Nov 1; 5 (7): 13-22.

AimsExtracorporeal life support (ECLS) has shown encouraging survival rates in patients with in-hospital cardiac arrest; however, its routine use is still controversial. We compared the survival of patients with in-hospital cardiac arrest receiving conventional cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CCPR) to that of patients with ECLS as an adjunct to cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR).MethodsA total of 353 patients with in-hospital cardiac arrest (272 CCPR and 52 ECPR) were included in this retrospective, propensity score-adjusted (1:1 matched), single-centre study. Primary endpoints were survival at 30 days, long-term survival and neurological outcome defined by the cerebral performance categories score.ResultsIn the unmatched groups patients undergoing ECPR initially had significantly higher APACHE II scores ( P=0.03), increased norepinephrine dosages ( P=0.03) and elevated levels of creatine kinase ( P<0.0001), creatinine ( P=0.04) and lactate ( P=0.02) before cardiopulmonary resuscitation compared with those undergoing CCPR. After equalising these parameters significant differences were observed in short and long-term survival, favouring ECPR over CCPR (27% vs. 17%; P=0.01 (short-term) and 23.1% vs. 11.5%; P=0.008 (long-term); median follow-up duration after discharge 1136 days (interquartile range 823-1416)). There was no significant difference in the incidence of a cerebral performance categories score of 1 or 2 between the matched groups (CCPR 66.7% vs. ECPR 83.3%; P=0.77). ECLS implantation was the only significant and independent predictor of mortality in multivariate Cox regression analysis (hazard ratio 0.57, 95% confidence interval 0.35-0.90; P=0.02).ConclusionIn our cohort of cardiovascular patients ECPR was associated with better short- and long-term survival over CCPR, with a good neurological outcome in the majority of the patients with refractory in-hospital cardiac arrest.

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