The Verdict Is In; The Longer The CPR The Better

No Debating Anymore; Seems Longer CPR is Better CPR
It has always been a subject of endless debates, yet not even the physicians could help bring it to an end. But while it’s understandably hard for a doctor to tell whether longer is better when resuscitating a patient, it seems there’s consensus, finally. Several research attempts seem to have pointed to the same result; longer CPR is better CPR!
According to researchers from the University of Michigan Health System, longer CPR attempts on a patient battling cardiac arrest, seems useful in some instances. The research alludes that extending the period of resuscitation attempts to 15 minutes makes the outcome a bit favorable and still doesn’t require too much time and resources.
About 200,000 cardiac arrest patients are hospitalized annually and out of the 50% that survive in the first episode, just about 20% recover enough to be discharged. Still, the 20% constitute those who resuscitate in about 12 minutes.
However, there’s more to this!
Yet another study presented to the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions in 2013 seemingly supports that of the University of Michigan Health System. From the new study, keeping resuscitation efforts going for a bit longer may boost the survivor’s brain functioning. The Japanese researchers revealed that by keeping CPR going for at least 30 minutes, the brain would have a better chance of working again.
However, a fascinating study, done by Zachary Goldberger and colleagues and published in the Lancet gave a damning revelation. The study outlines some insightful data on unpleasant outcomes of CPR patients who are already hospitalized. Further, the report underlines some thought-provoking findings on if efforts to elongate resuscitation could save patients and ensure they get discharged.
After researching 93,535 patients, all being 18 years and above, 64,339 patients were found to have suffered a cardiac arrest that lasted a minimum of 2 minutes. But out of these 64,339 patients, a majority (80%) had either asystole or pulse-less electrical activity, while 49% had experienced a return of spontaneous circulation. The other 15% only survived enough to get discharged after undergoing spontaneous circulation for 16.6 days.
But the primary goal of this research featured on Lancet was to assess if a more extended CPR done in a hospital had a direct impact on the fate of the eventual survivor. This justified the reason why it had to be non-survivors who had been used instead of everyone.
In the long run, patients who spent more periods under median resuscitation were:

1. More predisposed to getting a return to spontaneous circulation.
2. Better suited to surviving until they get discharged.
3. If indeed they get discharged, they were to have more encouraging neurological status than those hospitals that had shorter resuscitation durations.

 
The long and short of it is that ‘longer seems better’ when it comes to CPR durations, although 12% of all cardiac arrest patients hospitalized spent two minutes (at least) and were eventually discharged with encouraging “neurological outcome.”  However, it seems a systematic increase in the total period resuscitation takes may improve chances of survival of a high-risk population.
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