400,000 Deaths due to Cardiac Issues Each Year

A new study shows that survival of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is just 7 percent, according to researchers who presented their findings at ESC Congress 2013 by Professor Xavier Jouven and Dr. Ulfran Bougouin from France.

"Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is an important public health problem, accounting for more than 400,000 deaths every year," Dr. Bougouin said, via a press release. "The main cause is ventricular tachyarrhythmias which are often triggered by acute ischaemic events that can occur in persons with or without known heart disease. The survival rate from cardiac arrest has remained low over the last 40 years despite major investment and the epidemiology of SCD in Western Europe is unclear."

Background information from the study notes that Paris Sudden Death Expertise Centre (SDEC) Registry is a combination of multiple sources in order to collect information regarding cardiac arrest in the population of Paris according to the Ulstein Style.

Results from the study show 2 years of experience of SDEC Registry. From May 2011 to December 2012, 3,670 acts of recitation were attempted for cardiac arrest. As 72 percent of the cases occurred at home and 81 percent were bystander cases, performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation admitted alive at hospital and among these cases, only 34 percent of patients were admitted alive-7 percent discharged alive.

"The majority of sudden cardiac deaths occur outside hospital so specific programmes are needed in the community. Friends and relatives of people at risk of SCD should learn CPR and attend regular training to keep their skills up-to-date," Professor Jouven said, via the release. These interventions markedly improve survival yet are given to just over half of patients. Most patients should receive both."

"Having a cardiac arrest at home decreases the change of survival by half. People whose initial heart rhythm is shockable have a nearly 16 times greater chance of survival than those with an initial non-shockable rhythm because they can receive immediate defibrillation," he added. "The incidence of sudden cardiac arrest was lower than levels reported in previous studies, possibly because of the adjudication process considering only typical phenotype of sudden cardiac death (with also a high specificity), although local specificities of population characteristics could also be involved. As expected, prognosis was poor with just 7% of patients surviving out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

"Sudden cardiac death is a multidisciplinary field which includes cardiology, emergency medicine, intensive care units, psychology, ethics, public health and medico-economics. At the SDEC all of these competencies are working together to understand and prevent sudden cardiac death. Improving outcomes requires addressing the entire picture of sudden death through population education on basic life support, optimising care, prevention and screening of first degree relatives."

More information regarding the study can be found via the European Society of Cardiology.