Advanced Cardiac Life Support for Hyperkalemic Cardiac Arrest

ABSTRACT

The acceptable total number of electrical shocks used in treating cardiac arrest is not exactly defined in any of the literature. It is generally expressed as "the more trials the less chance". Electrical therapy should be promptly performed in the presence of "shockable"rhythm. But for pulseless patients bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) should be done on instead. The most reasonable number of attempts of electrical therapy and the length of CPR or unresponsive ventricular fibrillation or pulseless ventricular tachycardia are not well defined. We report the case of 57-year-old woman presenting with mental change due to sustained pulseless ventricular tachycardia who survived to hospital discharge without neurological sequelae after 45 defibrillations and prolonged CPR for 86 minutes.