• Acta Anaesthesiol Scand · Jan 2013

    Refractory cardiac arrest in a rural area: mechanical chest compression during helicopter transport.

    • K Tazarourte, D Sapir, F X Laborne, N Briole, J Y Letarnec, A Atchabahian, J F Cornu, M Monchi, P Jabre, and X Combes.
    • Services de Médecine d’Urgence et de Réanimation, Pôle Urgence Réanimation, SAMU 77, Melun, France.
    • Acta Anaesthesiol Scand. 2013 Jan 1;57(1):71-6.

    BackgroundOut-of-hospital refractory cardiac arrest patients can be transported to a hospital for extracorporeal life support (ECLS), which can be either therapeutic or performed for organ donation. Early initiation is of vital importance and the main limitation when considering ECLS. This explains that all reported series of cardiac arrest patients referred for ECLS were urban ones. We report a series of rural out-of-hospital non-heart-beating patients transported by helicopter.MethodsThis observational study was performed in two rural districts in France. Data on patients with pre-hospital criteria for ECLS who were transported to the hospital by helicopter, maintained by mechanical chest compression, were recorded over a 2-year period.ResultsDuring the study period, 27 patients were referred for ECLS, of which 14 for therapeutic ECLS and 13 for organ preservation. The median transport distance was 37 km (25th and 75th percentiles: 31-58; range 25 to 94 km). Among the therapeutic ECLS patients, one survived to discharge from the hospital. Liver and kidneys were retrieved in another patient after brain death was ascertained. In the 13 patients referred for organ donation, four were excluded for medical reasons; 18 kidneys were retrieved in nine patients, of which six kidneys were successfully transplanted.ConclusionIn this preliminary study, we report the feasibility and the interest of helicopter transport of refractory cardiac arrest patients maintained by mechanical chest compression. Patients with refractory cardiac arrest occurring in rural areas, even at distance from a referral centre, can be candidates for ECLS.© 2012 The Authors. Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica © 2012 The Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica Foundation.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…

Want more great medical articles?

Keep up to date with a free trial of metajournal, personalized for your practice.
1,704,841 articles already indexed!

We guarantee your privacy. Your email address will not be shared.