Survey data from seven U.S. cities support the use of the 2005 American Heart Association Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation guidelines, according to a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association.

Lead author Tom P. Aufderheide, MD, Professor of Emergency Medicine and Director of the Resuscitation Research Center in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, presented the data showing that a doubling of hospital discharge rates when the new guidelines were consistently and effectively applied to 893 patients.

The emergency services departments submitting data in the study tracked individuals who experienced cardiac arrest outside of the hospital all the way through hospital discharge. When subjects were treated with new techniques, including the use of an impedance threshold device (ITD; the ResQPOD), the hospital discharge rates jumped from 7.9 percent to 15.7 percent, double the survival rate of the control group.

Aufderheide said, "This menu of interventions for patients with cardiac arrest has resulted in one of the highest overall survival rates ever documented for this devastating medical condition. It represents a major breakthrough in the treatment of cardiac arrest, which we hope will be disseminated in other systems throughout the United States."

The seven departments participating in the study used new guidelines including increased compressions, full chest wall recoil and use of the impedance threshold device. The ResQPOD impedance threshold device is manufactured by Advanced Circulatory Systems. The impedance threshold device received a Class IIa rating by the American Heart Association in its 2005 Emergency Cardiac Care Guidelines, the highest recommendation possible given to an intervention that improves hemodynamics and improves the rate of return of spontaneous circulation after cardiac arrest.