Latsios G, Sanidas E, Velliou M, Nikitas G, Bounas P, Parisis C, Synetos A, Toutouzas K, Tsioufis C. Cardiac arrest: Pre-hospital strategies to facilitate successful resuscitation and improve recovery rates. World J Cardiol 2025; 17(1): 100782 [PMID: 39866210 DOI: 10.4330/wjc.v17.i1.100782]
Corresponding Author of This Article
George Latsios, FESC, MD, PhD, Attending Doctor, Chief Physician, Deputy Director, 1st University Department of Cardiology, "Hippokration" General Hospital, Athens Medical School, Alexandroupoleos 9, Athens 11527, Greece. glatsios@gmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Cardiol. Jan 26, 2025; 17(1): 100782 Published online Jan 26, 2025. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v17.i1.100782
Cardiac arrest: Pre-hospital strategies to facilitate successful resuscitation and improve recovery rates
George Latsios, Elias Sanidas, Maria Velliou, George Nikitas, Pavlos Bounas, Charalampos Parisis, Andreas Synetos, Konstantinos Toutouzas, Costas Tsioufis
George Latsios, Andreas Synetos, Konstantinos Toutouzas, Costas Tsioufis, 1st University Department of Cardiology, "Hippokration" General Hospital, Athens Medical School, Athens 11527, Greece
Elias Sanidas, Department of Cardiology, “Laiko” General Hospital, Athens 11527, Greece
Maria Velliou, Department of Emergency Medicine, Athens Medical School, “Attikon” University Hospital, Athens 12462, Greece
George Nikitas, Department of Cardiology, Panarkadiko General Hospital, Tripoli 22100, Greece
Pavlos Bounas, Department of Cardiology, "Thriasio" General Hospital, Elefsina 19600, Greece
Charalampos Parisis, Department of Cardiology, 404 General Military Hospital, Larisa 41222, Greece
Author contributions: All authors have contributed substantially to this manuscript regarding design, drafting, revision and final approval; all authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript to be published.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: George Latsios, FESC, MD, PhD, Attending Doctor, Chief Physician, Deputy Director, 1st University Department of Cardiology, "Hippokration" General Hospital, Athens Medical School, Alexandroupoleos 9, Athens 11527, Greece. glatsios@gmail.com
Received: August 26, 2024 Revised: December 6, 2024 Accepted: December 27, 2024 Published online: January 26, 2025 Processing time: 147 Days and 23.9 Hours
Abstract
The estimated annual incidence of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is approximately 120 cases per 100000 inhabitants in western countries. Although the rates of bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and use of automated external defibrillator are increasing, the likelihood of survival to hospital discharge is no more than 8%. To date, various devices and methods have been utilized in the initial CPR approach targeting to improve survival and neurological outcomes in OHCA patients. The aim of this review is to discuss strategies that facilitate resuscitation, increase the chance to achieve return to spontaneous circulation and improve survival to hospital discharge and neurological outcomes in the pre-hospital setting.
Core Tip: Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is a major health issue globally with substantial mortality rates. Improvement in overall equipment, adequate training of paramedics in order to initiate cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on-site rather than prioritizing transport to the Emergency Department, building a strong network in paramedicine and new CPR techniques represent several strategies to facilitate successful resuscitation, increase the probability of return to spontaneous circulation and improve survival to hospital discharge and neurological outcomes. Raising awareness and educating the public could also minimize the delays in recognizing cardiac arrest and initiating CPR.
