Time to change the times? Time of recurrence of ventricular fibrillation during OHCA

Double sequential external defibrillation for refractory ventricular fibrillation

“…Author details 1 Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. 2 Sunnybrook Centre for Prehospital Medicine, Toronto, ON, Canada. 3 Schwartz/Reisman Emergency Medicine Institute, Sinai Health, Toronto, ON, Canada.…”

“…Sudden cardiac arrest is the third leading cause of death in industrialized nations, resulting in more than 700,000 deaths in Europe and the United States of America (USA) annually, with nearly one-third attributed to ventricular fibrillation (VF) or pulseless ventricular tachycardia [1]. However, despite multiple defibrillation attempts, almost half of these patients remain in shock refractory VF [2][3][4]. Further defibrillation without modifying the defibrillation method is usually unsuccessful and survival to hospital discharge decreases rapidly with additional defibrillation attempts [5].…”