Covid-19 Cardiac Arrest: Resuscitate Or Not?

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been associated with high in-hospital mortality. Since the implementation of guidelines and improvement in the quality of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), the survival rate for non-COVID-19 patients has improved. There is, however, scarce data regarding in-hospital cardiac arrest outcomes in COVID-19 patients. This study aimed to investigate cardiac arrest outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. Method(s) Retrospective study of the data of 994 adult patients admitted to a single-center high acuity critical care COVID-19 unit between March 2020 and February 2022 with COVID-19 diagnosis. Patients who underwent CPR were identified. Resuscitation registers and demographic information were obtained. The primary outcome was survival to hospital discharge. Secondary assessments were the initial rhythm and duration of CPR. Descriptive statistics were utilized. Result(s) A total of 994 COVID-19 patients were included in the study. 129 (13%) had a cardiac arrest and underwent CPR. Two patients survived hospital discharge (1.6%). Of them, 91(70.5%) were male. Mean age was 68.6 (+/-13.5) years. Median BMI was 29.1 [25.8-35.7] Kg/m2. The most frequent comorbidity was hypertension in 59 patients (46.1%), followed by diabetes type 2 in 30 patients (23.4%), and there were 37 (28.9%) patients with no comorbidities. The median time from admission to cardiac arrest was 12[6-18.5] days, the most common rhythm at the time of cardiac arrest was asystole in 94 (72.9%) patients, followed by pulseless electrical activity in 25 (19.4%);Ventricular dysrhythmias occurred in 7 (5.5%)of the cases. Finally, the median duration of CPR was 20[13.7-29] minutes. Conclusion(s) Survival of COVID-19 patients after in-hospital cardiac arrest was dismal, despite the adequate implementation of resuscitation protocols. Many of these patients were overweight or obese with comorbid conditions. The most common presenting rhythm was a non-shockable rhythm.