• H H Delooz and P J Lewi.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, University Hospitals of the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium.
• Resuscitation. 1989 Jan 1;17 Suppl:S161-72; discussion S199-206.

AbstractThe hospital of Brugge relies on selection of the emergency calls and sends a Mobile Intensive Care Unit (MICU) whenever cardiac arrest (CA) is suspected. The University Hospital of Leuven does no selection of calls and responds to every emergency call by sending an ambulance with an advanced life support (ALS) trained nurse. The MICU is called when the ambulance crew recognizes the emergency to be a CA. The Leuven system is a so-called tiered system. Although MICU-response times are significantly longer in Leuven than in Brugge, no difference is found as to the success of CPCR. The immediate response to all emergency calls by specialized E.D. nurses (paramedic) capable of ALS, seems to make up for the difference in MICU-response times. The University Hospital of Jette has a higher success-rate for CPCR for in-hospital CA, than the University Hospitals of Leuven. Due to size and lay-out differences, the MICU-response times are shorter in Jette than in Leuven. Basic life support (BLS) provided by doctors and nurses present at the scene, does not seem to be able to compensate for longer MICU-arrival times. The introduction of semi-automatic or automatic defibrillators, to be used by the BLS trained medical and nursing personnel, might be able to make up for the longer MICU-intervention times. Inter-center differences were witnessed as far as the amount of sodium-bicarbonate infused during CPR. Within each group of total duration of CPR an inverse correlation exists between the amount of bicarbonate infused and the success rate of CPCR. Partial correlation between the bicarbonate infused and the survival with regaining of consciousness at 14 days post-CPR, with constant CPR-time, is statistically significant. This indicates that long-term CPCR success is inversely correlated with increasing amounts of sodium-bicarbonate infused. Short duration of CPR and low adrenaline dosage correlate with immediate and long-term success of CPR. On the contrary, low versus high bicarbonate dosage has hardly any influence on immediate success (restoration of spontaneous circulatory activity) but low bicarbonate dosage favours long-term success (survival accompanied by recuperation of brain function). Our data support a negative effect on long-term survival with recuperation of consciousness from infusion of more than 1 mEq/kg body weight of sodium-bicarbonate during CPR. No final conclusions can be drawn so far as to the mechanisms of this negative effect at the level of the brain.

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