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Immediate Defibrillation for Out-of-Hospital Ventricular Fibrillation

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Intensive Care Medicine

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Abstract

Despite well-developed emergency medical service (EMS) systems with rapid response advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) capabilities, survival rates for sudden out-of-hospital cardiac arrest have remained low in most venues, even for out-of-hospital ventricular fibrillation (VF), the highly-reversible cause of most sudden out-of-hospital cardiac arrest events [1–4]. These poor resuscitation rates have been attributed most often to delays in the delivery of basic cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) by witnesses, or of rapid defibrillation by EMS personnel [3–4]. However, recent laboratory and clinical data have also begun to suggest that the current standard of immediately providing countershock may be detrimental when VF has been prolonged beyond several minutes [5–9].

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Authors
  1. P. E. Pepe
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  2. J. G. Wigginton
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  3. R. L. Fowler
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Intensive Care, Erasme Hospital, Free University of Brussels, Route de Lennik 808, B-1070, Brussels, Belgium

    Jean-Louis Vincent MD, PhD, FCCM, FCCP (Head) (Head)

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© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Pepe, P.E., Wigginton, J.G., Fowler, R.L. (2003). Immediate Defibrillation for Out-of-Hospital Ventricular Fibrillation. In: Vincent, JL. (eds) Intensive Care Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5548-0_44

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5548-0_44

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-5550-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-5548-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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