Mental Health

CPR Without Ventilation Less Effective After Heart Attack: Study

By Peter R | Update Date: Nov 11, 2015 04:36 PM EST

It has been known for some time now that chest compressions with ventilation improved chances of recovery from a heart attack. A new study now provides the evidence.

According to UPI, US medical researchers concluded that pausing chest compressions for ventilation improved blood supply to heart and oxygenation. Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) involves ventilation but is often performed without it.

The research shows that ventilation increased chance of survival and recovery.

"Current CPR guidelines permit use of either continuous chest compressions or interrupted chest compressions with ventilations by EMS providers. Our trial shows that both types of CPR achieve good outcomes, but that compressions with pauses for ventilations appears to be a bit better," said study's principal author Graham Nichol, director of the University of Washington-Harborview Center for Prehospital Emergency Care in Seattle.

To arrive at their findings, researchers analyzed survival rates among 23,709 adults who suffered cardiac arrest between June 2011 and May 2015. Their analysis showed that 8.9 percent of a group that received only chest compressions survived to reach hospital discharged as against 9.7 percent in the group that received CPR with ventilation.

During the first month out of the hospital following heart attack, significantly more number of people in the group that received standard CPR survived, researchers found.

The study has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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