Introduction:
Cardiac arrest is a common event and one of the leading causes of death. Especially within the elderly judgment on if the treatment will be in favor of the patient is a major challenge for the medical team. We evaluated the influence of the age on short and long-term survival after out-of- hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA).
Hypothesis:
Elderly people survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest with good neurological outcome.
Methods:
For this purpose, we analyzed data of 24,686 out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients prospectively registered between 2008 and 2017 within the German Resuscitation Registry (GRR). The data records were divided according to different age groups and within the age group after shockable and non-shockable rhythms. The data sets were examined with regard to short and long-term survival. Short term survival was measured by expected and observed return-of-spontaneous circulation based on the RACA-score. The RACA-score is a previously published score to predict ROSC based on readily available variables after arrival of the emergency medical service (EMS) on scene. Long-term survival was differentiated in 24-hour survival, 30-day survival and hospital discharge with good neurological outcome (Cerebral Performance Category 1 and 2).
Results:
(Table 1)
Conclusions:
Our data shows that shockable rhythm and younger age are important factors of good neurological outcome after OHCA. Nevertheless, the few cases with shockable rhythms (411 out of 3227) in the elderly (>85 years) showed a favorable neurological outcome in 12.2% (77,2% of all patients with hospital discharge). In the non-shockable group 1.4% (58,3%) of the >85 year old had a good outcome. Data show that a resuscitation attempt in the elderly is not futile, especially if a shockable rhythm is detected. Further studies are necessary to maintain this decision.
The implementation of a dual dispatch system in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is associated with improved short and long term survival
