The association between alcohol intake shortly before arrest and survival outcomes of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

Abstract

Alcohol intake is one of the triggers of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) and is associated with survival outcomes due to its relationship with cardiovascular conditions such as variant angina and arrhythmias. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between alcohol intake shortly before cardiac arrest and survival outcomes after OHCA. This observational study was conducted using a nationwide OHCA registry database in Korea. All adult OHCA patients with presumed cardiac etiology from 2016 to 2019 were analyzed. The primary outcome was survival to hospital discharge. Secondary outcomes included coronary angiography (CAG), percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), and implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) implantation. Groups with and without alcohol intake shortly before cardiac arrest were compared using propensity score matching and conditional logistic regression analysis. Among the study population of 83,087, 1,777 (2.1%) patients consumed alcohol shortly before OHCA. In the propensity score-matched population, the group with alcohol intake showed significantly higher odds of survival to hospital discharge compared to the group without alcohol intake (OR (95% CI): 1.33 (1.15-1.53)). The odds of receiving CAG without PCI and ICD implantation were significantly higher in the group with alcohol intake compared to the group without alcohol intake (OR (95% CI): 1.60 (1.34-1.92) and 1.74 (1.28-2.37), respectively), while the odds of receiving CAG with PCI were significantly lower (OR (95% CI): 0.75 (0.59-0.95)). In OHCA patients with presumed cardiac etiology, alcohol intake shortly before arrest was associated with higher odds of survival outcomes.