Airway Devices May Not Help in Cardiac Arrest

Advanced airway management -- endotracheal intubation or the use of supraglottic airway devices -- may not be beneficial to emergency medical services personnel when trying to resuscitate patients who've had an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, an observational study suggested.

The percentage of patients with a favorable neurological outcome 1 month after the arrest was significantly lower among those who received advanced airway management than among those who received conventional bag-valve-mask ventilation (1.1% versus 2.9%; OR 0.38, 95% CI 0.36 to 0.39), according to Kohei Hasegawa, MD, MPH, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues.

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Source: MedPage Today