A study conducted by St. Olavs Hospital and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) has provided documentation regarding the efficacy of adrenaline in treating in-hospital cardiac arrest. This research investigates the use of adrenaline after initial cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and defibrillation attempts have not restored a patient's heart function.
Background
When a patient experiences cardiac arrest in a hospital setting, healthcare professionals initiate CPR with breathing and chest compressions, followed by connection to a defibrillator. If these initial interventions do not restore heart activity, adrenaline is administered intravenously. While adrenaline has been utilized in emergency medicine for over 50 years, particularly for conditions like anaphylactic shock and in pre-hospital cardiac arrest, its specific effectiveness in in-hospital cardiac arrest had not been definitively documented prior to this study.
Study Findings
The research, led by anaesthesiologist Anders Norvik and the emergency team at St. Olavs Hospital, observed that adrenaline began to act within one minute of administration. This intervention increased the probability of the patient regaining a pulse by fivefold. The study also indicated that the first dose of adrenaline yielded the most significant effect. Subsequent doses were observed to be less effective, although this particular finding was noted to have less certainty.
Eirik Skogvoll, a senior consultant at the Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine at St. Olavs Hospital and a professor at the Department of Circulation and Medical Imaging at NTNU, highlighted that healthcare professionals' precise recording of adrenaline timing during resuscitation efforts enabled this statistical analysis.
Collaboration and Publication
This study was a collaborative effort involving NTNU, St. Olavs Hospital, the University of Stavanger, and the University of the Basque Country (Bilbao). The findings were presented at the European Council for Resuscitation (ERC) conference and subsequently published in the professional journal Resuscitation Plus. The research group has a history of studying resuscitation and received an award for the best publication of the year at St. Olavs Hospital in the preceding year.