[Resuscitation among patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest; intra-arrest transport, or not?] / Reanimatie bij hartstilstand buiten het ziekenhuis.

A prospective cohort study recently published in JAMA looked at the difference in survival to hospital discharge between intra-arrest transport vs continued on-scene resuscitation among patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). The conclusion of this study is that intra-arrest transport is associated with a lower survival compared to continuous on-site treatment. Research by the Amsterdam Resuscitation Study (ARREST) shows that in OHCA patients who are transported intra-arrest, survival decreases significantly if the time on-scene increases. Patients who are transported within 20 minutes have the highest chance of survival. This suggests that the decision for transport should be made early in the resuscitation process. National and regional circumstances (availability of a mobile medical team, distance to hospital etc.), and pre-hospital resuscitation treatments may make that different scenarios can be considered. In some scenarios extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (eCPR) can be brought to the patient; in other scenarios the patient can be transported to the eCPR.