Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Aug 6, 2022; 10(22): 7738-7748
Published online Aug 6, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i22.7738
Correlation between the warning symptoms and prognosis of cardiac arrest
Kang Zheng, Yi Bai, Qiang-Rong Zhai, Lan-Fang Du, Hong-Xia Ge, Guo-Xing Wang, Qing-Bian Ma
Kang Zheng, Yi Bai, Qiang-Rong Zhai, Lan-Fang Du, Hong-Xia Ge, Qing-Bian Ma, Department of Emergency Medicine, Peking University Third Hospital, Beijing 100191, China
Guo-Xing Wang, Department of Emergency Medicine, Beijing Friendship Hospital, Beijing 100050, China
Author contributions: Zheng K and Ma QB designed the study; Zheng K and Bai Y participated in the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of the data, and drafted the initial manuscript; Zhai QR, Du LF, Ge HX and Wang GX participated in the acquisition and analysis of the data; Ma QB revised the article critically for important intellectual content; all authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Supported by Clinical Medicine Plus X-Young Scholars Project, Peking University, The Fundamental Research Funds for The Central Universities, No. PKU2022LCXQ008.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Peking University Third Hospital Medical Science Research Ethics Committee, No. IRB00006761-M2019353.
Informed consent statement: Informed consent was waived.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at maqingbian@bjmu.edu.cn.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Qing-Bian Ma, MD, Director, Department of Emergency Medicine, Peking University Third Hospital, No. 49 North Garden Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100191, China. maqingbian@bjmu.edu.cn
Received: January 29, 2022
Peer-review started: January 29, 2022
First decision: May 11, 2022
Revised: May 21, 2022
Accepted: June 17, 2022
Article in press: June 17, 2022
Published online: August 6, 2022
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

The characteristics of early warning symptoms need further research. Especially the point of time, frequency and severity of warning symptoms before cardiac arrest occur.

Research motivation

Most patients had warning symptoms before cardiac arrest. Dyspnea, chest pain, and unconsciousness were the most common symptoms. The characteristics of the warning symptoms may be helpful in identifying the etiology and allowing the initiation of targeted treatment during cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Research objectives

A total of 65.9% of patients had symptoms before arrest. Dyspnea, chest pain, and unconsciousness were the most common symptoms. The patients with symptoms had a higher rate of initial shockable rhythm, restoration of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) and survival than patients without symptoms. The out-of-hospital cardiac arrest symptoms subgroup had a higher rate of bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation, a shorter no flow time, and a higher ROSC rate. The in-hospital cardiac arrest symptoms subgroup had higher ROSC and survival rates.

Research methods

This was a retrospective study. We included all adult patients with all-cause cardiac arrest who visited Peking University Third Hospital or Beijing Friendship Hospital between January 2012 and December 2014. Data on population, symptoms, resuscitation parameters, and outcomes were analysed and compared between cardiac arrest patients with warning symptoms and those without warning symptoms.

Research results

We sought to investigate the characteristics of the warning symptoms of cardiac arrest, and to determine the correlation between cardiac arrest symptoms and patient prognosis.

Research conclusions

We found that different etiologies of sudden cardiac arrest correlate with certain symptoms and that the immediate and correct recognition of symptoms and etiology can improve patient survival.

Research perspectives

In the future, we should carry out more research on the characteristics of symptoms, such as the point of time, frequency and severity of warning symptoms.