Critical care medicine
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Critical care medicine · Oct 1996
Extramyocardial acidosis impairs cardiac resuscitability in isolated, perfused, rat hearts.
Patients suffering out-of-hospital cardiac arrest have various degrees of acidemia when cardiopulmonary resuscitation is initiated. Myocardial hypercarbia, rather than decreases in myocardial pH, may determine cardiac resuscitability. Accordingly, we questioned whether different degrees of acidemia accompanying cardiac arrest affect cardiac resuscitability. We evaluated the effect of different degrees of extramyocardial acidosis on cardiac performance and resuscitability after ventricular fibrillation using isolated, perfused, rat hearts. ⋯ Extramyocardial acidosis below pH 7.1 decreased cardiac performance and resuscitability after ventricular fibrillation. This result indicates that progressive acidemia during cardiac arrest is one of the important determinants of cardiac resuscitability.