Podcast 678: ECMO for Refractory VFib

<p><strong>Contributor:  Aaron Lessen, MD</strong></p> <p><strong>Educational Pearls:</strong></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Refractory ventricular fibrillation, defined as 3 defibrillation shocks without resolution, was studied via RCT looking to compare ECMO with cardiac cath vs. typical resuscitation</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">After 30 patients (15 each arm), the trial was stopped because such a significant benefit seen in the ECMO arm</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">6 patients survived and 3 had good neurological outcomes at 6 months with ECMO</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">This is compared to 1 patient surviving initially and none surviving at 6 months in the typical resuscitation arm</span></li> </ul> <p><strong>References</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Yannopoulos D, Bartos J, Raveendran G, et al. Advanced reperfusion strategies for patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and refractory ventricular fibrillation (ARREST): a phase 2, single centre, open-label, randomised controlled trial. Lancet. 2020;396(10265):1807-1816. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32338-2</span></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Summarized by John Spartz, MS4 | Edited by Erik Verzemnieks, MD</span></em></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Emergency Medical Minute is excited to announce that we are now offering</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">AMA PRA Category 1 credits™</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">via online course modules. To access these and for more information, visit our website at</span> <a href= "http://www.emergencymedicalminute.com/cme-courses"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">www.emergencymedicalminute.com/cme-courses/</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">and create an account. </span></p> <p><a href= "https://www.paypal.