Simpler CPR Is “Just as Good” as Standard CPR

In August this year I wrote about the new, simpler CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) that eliminates the mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing, allowing the operator to concentrate on adequate chest compressions.  At that time, available results for bystander CPR using the new compression-only method vs. standard CPR showed no difference in survival for cardiac arrest victims between the two methods.  Now the results of another bystander study have been published, this time in the Journal of the American Medical Association. 

The new study is a 5-year analysis of more than 4,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in Arizona.  Compression-only bystander CPR results were compared with standard CPR from a bystander and with no bystander CPR.  Survival to hospital discharge was measured for each group.  It was found there was increased survival with bystander compression-only CPR (849 cases), compared with the other 2 groups (666 cases of bystander standard CPR and 2,900 cases of no bystander CPR).  The survival rates were 13.3%, 7.8%, and 5.2%, respectively, representing a significant improvement for the compression-only method.  It must be mentioned, however, that survival with good neurological status was similar with both compression-only and standard (mouth-to-mouth) CPR.

The trend is clearly towards compression-only CPR, so it’s important that everyone knows how to administer compressions correctly.  Go to this site . . . or this one.