IN-HOSPITAL CARDIAC-ARREST

Cardiac arrest is a complex clinical problem that is not easy to study. The in-hospital cardiac arrest should provide an excellent laboratory for the study of this problem-a laboratory that has been underutilized by resuscitation researchers because of a variety of biases that are not supported by facts. The in-hospital setting provides better control of important variables, especially the arrest interval; provides more survivors; and allows for more detailed and complicated protocols. Future research of in-hospital cardiac arrest must incorporate a standardized data collection and reporting format that includes objective assessments of both prearrest disease severity such as the APACHE score25 and long-term functional outcome such as the Glasgow-Pittsburgh Outcome CategorieS.26 Last, and most important, it is time for scientific inquiries concerning in-hospital cardiac arrest to shift from observational reports to controlled clinical trials so the efficacy of existing and new resuscitative techniques can be determined.