Medical history of hypercholesterolaemia adversely affects the outcome of out-of-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation; the 'Shahal' experience in Israel.

Abstract

To evaluate the impact selected risk factors for cardiac death may have on the success rate in a large cohort of subscribers to 'SHAHAL' who were resuscitated from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. In this medical facility currently serving 50 000 subscribers, data were prospectively gathered from between 1987-1998. The information retrieved from the patients' medical records included a medical history of hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolaemia (>220.mg. dl(-1)) smoking, angina, previous myocardial infarction, and congestive heart failure. A total of 998 patients aged 74+/-12 years (mean+/-1 SD) were included. Death was announced at the scene for 659 (66%) victims, while 339 (34%) patients were taken to hospital. Of these 140 (14% of the total cohort) survived and were discharged from the hospital. A comparison of various selected parameters between survivors and non-survivors of resuscitation revealed that survivors were younger, had a higher rate of pulseless ventricular tachycardia/ventricular fibrillation, more were among the arrests witnessed by the 'SHAHAL' team, and that more had a shorter time lag to initiation of cardiopulmonary resuscitation than non-survivors. None of the studied risk factors predicted the outcome of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, with the exception of hypercholesterolaemia, which carried a significantly worse prognosis for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (P=0.009). A medical history of hypercholesterolaemia appears to be an important risk factor which adversely affects the outcome of cardiopulmonary resuscitation.