Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) in Malaysia: What''s the Outcomes?

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an integral part of emergency medicine. Despite that, there has not been many published works of CPR in Malaysia. This study serves to look into the effectiveness of CPR performed in the emergency Department of a teaching hospital in Malaysia. All patients with CPR done in this hospital from March 2005 to March 2006 were included. A total of 63 cardiac arrest patients were analyzed. Out of these 63 patients, 23 (36.5%) of the 63 patients were categorized as out-of-hospital Arrests (OHA) whereas the other 40 (63.5%) had an in-hospital arrest (IHA). In total, 19 (30.2%) of them had achieved return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC). Only 6 patients (9.5%) achieved ROSC until admission to ward (survival to admission). The chance of a patient with IHA to achieve ROSC regardless of whether the ROSC was sustained until admission to ward was about two times (37.5%) higher compared to a patient with OHA (17.4%) (p=0.094). Other factors found to be associated with higher chance of survival rate are early commencement of CPR, presence of emergency physicians during CPR and the presence of shockable rhythm as the initial cardiac arrest rhythm.