CPR With Ventilation Saves More Lives, New Study Says

A new study shows how important pausing is during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR.)

Researchers found that giving pauses during chest compressions extended survival chances of patients via improved blood supply to the heart and oxygenation. Roughly 8.9 percent of a group that received only chest compressions survived to reach the hospital compared to 9.7 percent receiving CPR with ventilation. Patients receiving ventilation also had more days alive outside the hospital in the month after a heart attack.

Though CPR involves ventilation, it is often performed without it, researchers say.

During the study, researchers analyzed survival rates among 23,709 adults who suffered cardiac arrest between June 2011 and May 2015.

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

Additionally, the researchers found 7.7 percent of patients who received ventilation had favorable neurological function scores on the Rankin scale, as opposed to 7 percent of the group not receiving ventilation.

Though the difference between the two are rather small, the differences are still significant in terms of the number of lives saved and may change current guidelines. 

The study is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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