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A recent study showed possible adverse outcomes in adult cardiac arrest patients who were intubated in the field (JW Emerg Med Nov 19 2010). To assess the effect of prehospital intubation on survival in adult patients with nontraumatic cardiac arrest, researchers reviewed a database of patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest who were transported to a single hospital in Michigan between 1995 and 2006.
Of 1414 adult patients with nontraumatic arrest (613 with ventricular fibrillation (VF)/ventricular tachycardia (VT) and 742 with other rhythms), 86% underwent prehospital intubation. Overall, survival to hospital discharge did not differ significantly between intubated and nonintubated patients (6.5% vs. 10.0%). However, among patients wit…