Douglas Chamberlain

Utstein-style guidelines contribute to improved public health internationally by providing a structured framework with which to compare emergency medical services systems. Advances in resuscitation science, new insights into important predictors of outcome from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, and lessons learned from methodological research prompted this review and update of the 2004 Utstein guidelines. Representatives of the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation developed an updated Utstein reporting framework iteratively by meeting face to face, by teleconference, and by Web survey during 2012 through 2014. Herein are recommendations for reporting out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Data elements were grouped by system factors, dispatch/recognition, patient variables, resuscitation/postresuscitation processes, and outcomes. Elements were classified as core or supplemental using a modified Delphi process primarily based on respondents' assessment of the evidence-based importance of capturing those elements, tempered by the challenges to collect them. New or modified elements reflected consensus on the need to account for emergency medical services system factors, increasing availability of automated external defibrillators, data collection processes, epidemiology trends, increasing use of dispatcher-assisted cardiopulmonary resuscitation, emerging field treatments, postresuscitation care, prognostication tools, and trends in organ recovery. A standard reporting template is recommended to promote standardized reporting. This template facilitates reporting of the bystander-witnessed, shockable rhythm as a measure of emergency medical services system efficacy and all emergency medical services system-treated arrests as a measure of system effectiveness. Several additional important subgroups are identified that enable an estimate of the specific contribution of rhythm and bystander actions that are key determinants of outcome.

BACKGROUND: Approximately 70% of persons who have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest have underlying acute myocardial infarction or pulmonary embolism. Therefore, thrombolysis during cardiopulmonary resuscitation may improve survival. METHODS: In a double-blind, multicenter trial, we randomly assigned adult patients with witnessed out-of-hospital cardiac arrest to receive tenecteplase or placebo during cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Adjunctive heparin or aspirin was not used. The primary end point was 30-day survival; the secondary end points were hospital admission, return of spontaneous circulation, 24-hour survival, survival to hospital discharge, and neurologic outcome. RESULTS: After blinded review of data from the first 443 patients, the data and safety monitoring board recommended discontinuation of enrollment of asystolic patients because of low survival, and the protocol was amended. Subsequently, the trial was terminated prematurely for futility after enrolling a total of 1050 patients. Tenecteplase was administered to 525 patients and placebo to 525 patients; the two treatment groups had similar clinical profiles. We did not detect any significant differences between tenecteplase and placebo in the primary end point of 30-day survival (14.7% vs. 17.0%; P=0.36; relative risk, 0.87; 95% confidence interval, 0.65 to 1.15) or in the secondary end points of hospital admission (53.5% vs. 55.0%, P=0.67), return of spontaneous circulation (55.0% vs. 54.6%, P=0.96), 24-hour survival (30.6% vs. 33.3%, P=0.39), survival to hospital discharge (15.1% vs. 17.5%, P=0.33), or neurologic outcome (P=0.69). There were more intracranial hemorrhages in the tenecteplase group. CONCLUSIONS: When tenecteplase was used without adjunctive antithrombotic therapy during advanced life support for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, we did not detect an improvement in outcome, in comparison with placebo. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00157261.)