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Cardiac arrest survival rates are dismal, particularly when cardiopulmonary resuscitation duration exceeds 10 minutes. Extracorporeal life support (ECLS) is a modified form of cardiopulmonary bypass that provides prolonged oxygen delivery to the tissues in patients with respiratory failure, cardiac failure, or both. In a 3-year prospective observational study, researchers in Taiwan compared CPR plus ECLS with conventional CPR alone in patients aged 18 to 75 who had in-hospital cardiac arrest of cardiac origin and initially received CPR for more than 10 minutes. The decision to initiate ECLS was at the discretion of the attending physician.
Of 975 adult patients with in-hospital cardiac arrest during the study period, 803 were excluded from t…