Background: There is a substantial mortality rate in patients admitted alive after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. The primary objective of our study was to examine trends in in-hospital survival in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survivors in Canada between 1994 and 2004. The secondary objective was to examine predictors of in-hospital survival in these patients.
Methods: Data on hospital admissions from April 1, 1994, to March 31, 2004, were obtained from the Health Person-oriented Information Database, maintained by Statistics Canada. We included all patients with a primary diagnosis of cardiac arrest who survived to hospital admission. We assessed survival to hospital discharge in all patients admitted alive.
Results: In Canada, 13,263 patients survived community arrest between 1994 and 2004. The annual incidence of hospital admission after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest decreased by 33%, from 5.37 per 100,000 in 1994 to 3.63 per 100,000 in 2004 (P < .0001 for trend). Subsequently, 5,045 patients (38.03%) survived to hospital discharge. The survival rate did not change during the duration of the study. Invasive coronary artery disease management was associated with a greatly increased chance of survival (odds ratio 21.98, 95% CI 17.62-27.42). Also male gender, heart failure, and acute myocardial ischemia were independent positive predictors of survival to hospital discharge; greater age and comorbidities were negative predictors of survival. Finally, there were significant interprovincial variations in survival rates.
Conclusions: Our study, the largest of its kind, has 4 main findings. Firstly, between 1993 and 2004, there was a significant and steady decline in admission rates after community cardiac arrest. Second, there was no change in the in-hospital survival rates. Thirdly, invasive management of coronary artery disease was associated with a greatly improved chance of survival, and finally, there were important regional variations in survival rates.
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