The comparisons of prehospital treatments in traumatic and non-traumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arrests

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: The outcome of traumatic cardiac arrests remains poor. Nevertheless, the prehospital treatments for traumatic arrests are insufficient in Korea. This study was conducted to compare the prehospital treatments in traumatic and non-traumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA). METHODS: This was a retrospective, single-center study based on the prospectively collected database of an academic tertiary medical center. The study period was from 2009 to 2017. The following items were compared age, sex, rates of bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), prehospital intubation, prehospital defibrillation, prehospital epinephrine administration, CPR duration, rates of return of spontaneous circulation, and the survival discharge. RESULTS: Among 786 arrest patients, there were 226 (28.7%) traumatic cardiac arrests and 560 (71.2%) non-traumatic cardiac arrests. The rate of bystander CPR was lower (3.1% vs. 17.5%, P<0.001) in traumatic OHCAs. The prehospital intubation, defibrillation, and epinephrine administration were lower in traumatic OHCAs. CONCLUSION: The prehospital treatments, including bystander CPR, prehospital intubation, and epinephrine administration, were performed less actively in traumatic OHCAs. On the other hand, these results were limited to a single hospital.