The sooner a lay rescuer (bystander) starts cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on a person having a cardiac arrest at home or in public, up to 10 minutes after the arrest, the better the chances of saving the person's life and protecting their brain function, according to preliminary research to be presented at the American Heart Association's Resuscitation Science Symposium 2024. The meeting will be held Nov. 16-17, 2024, at the Hilton Chicago Hotel in Chicago and will feature the most recent advances related to treating cardiopulmonary arrest and life-threatening traumatic injury.
Cardiac arrest, which occurs when the heart malfunctions and abruptly stops beating, is often fatal without quick medical attention such as CPR to increase blood flow to the heart and brain. More than 357,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happen each year in the U.S.
with a 9.3% survival rate. Our findings reinforce that every second counts when starting bystander CPR and even a few minutes delay can make a big difference.
If you see someone in need of CPR, don't dwell on how long they've been down, your quick actions could save their life." Evan O'Keefe, M.D.
, study's first author and cardiovascular fellow at Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute and the University of Missouri-Kansas City The study analyzed nearly 200,000 cases of witnessed out-of-hospital cardiac arrest to determine whether initiating CPR within different time windows, compared to outcomes with no bystander CPR administere.