An Automated External Defibrillator Reveals the Cause of Cardiac Arrest in a Completely Recovered Young Male

概要

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An automated external defibrillator (AED) is globally well-known to be a useful equipment for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and it plays a major role in "chain of survival". We believe that AED might also be very useful for revealing the cause of cardiac arrest. A 19-year-old healthy male collapsed during a rock concert. He was resuscitated by the doctor in a temporary clinic provided for the concert. An AED showed that shock was not required during CPR. When the ambulance arrived at the scene (seventeen minutes after the patient collapsed), the patient showed return of spontaneous circulation but he was found to be deeply comatose. On his arrival to our hospital, he was agitated and in an extremely confused state. However, his circulation had stabilized with normal sinus rhythm. Thirty-six hours after hospitalization, he woke up with a slight impairment of short-term memory. The electrocardiogram stored in the AED revealed complete heart block, which was suspected to be the cause for his cardiac arrest. Although some reports indicated that majority of the cases of sudden cardiac arrest in healthy young men were caused by ventricular fibrillation, the main cause often remains unclear. We conclude that AED is a useful equipment not only for detecting ventricular fibrillation but also for detecting the cause of cardiac arrest.
一般社団法人日本救急医学会の論文