Chinese Registry Reports 9.1% Survival After In-Hospital Cardiac Arrest

A multicenter prospective cohort study published in Circulation examined in-hospital cardiac arrest using the BASIC-IHCA registry. It included 17,602 adults who received cardiopulmonary resuscitation at 37 hospitals across 29 Chinese provinces between July 2019 and December 2020. Median age was 66 years, and 65.5% were male. The primary outcome was survival to 30 days or hospital discharge.

The annual incidence of adult in-hospital cardiac arrest was 4.1 per 1,000 admissions. Initial rhythms were shockable in 13.5% of patients. Resuscitation began within one minute in 95.9%; timely defibrillation and epinephrine were achieved in 71.4% of patients with shockable rhythms and 84.4% with nonshockable rhythms, respectively. Sustained return of spontaneous circulation occurred in 6,200 patients (35.2%). Of these, 3.6% received temperature control therapy and 5.2% underwent coronary angiography.

Overall, 1,610 patients (9.1%) survived to 30 days or discharge, and 1,241 (7.1%) had favorable neurological outcomes, defined as Cerebral Performance Category scores of 1–2. At 12 months, 1,075 (6.1%) remained alive and 986 (5.6%) had favorable neurological outcomes.

The findings identify potential opportunities to strengthen postresuscitation care and response systems. However, the observational design cannot establish that low intervention use caused poor survival; the supplied abstract does not report eligibility for these interventions. The authors also suggest that infrequent do-not-attempt-resuscitation orders may influence survival disparities. Full text was unavailable for assessment.