A recent study examined out-of-hospital cardiac arrest cases in Busan, South Korea, analyzing how quickly emergency medical services (EMS) arrived and whether patients achieved return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) before reaching the hospital. Researchers reviewed 2,388 adult cardiac arrest cases from 2022 and found that 179 people (7.5%) achieved return of spontaneous circulation. Many of these cardiac arrests were unwitnessed, occurred at home or in nonpublic places, and involved heart rhythms that are harder to treat. While bystander CPR occurred in about half of cases, the use of an automated external defibrillator (AED) by bystanders was extremely rare.
The study found that faster EMS response times were linked to better chances of restoring a heartbeat. When EMS arrived within four minutes of the emergency call, patients were almost three times more likely to regain circulation compared with longer response times. However, very few cases met these faster response benchmarks—only about 2.5% of calls had EMS arrive within four minutes.
The findings reinforce the importance of rapid response, early CPR, and early defibrillation as key factors that improve survival after cardiac arrest.
Read more here.
SOURCE: American Journal of Emergency Medicine