Simpler CPR can save just as many

Published 9:37 pm Monday, December 24, 2007

TUCSON, Ariz. — There is yet more evidence showing that a simpler and easier way to perform CPR — using chest compressions only — saves lives just as well as traditional CPR and its mouth-to-mouth breathing.

As a result, that easier method should be taught worldwide instead of the old method, because people are much more likely to use it on victims of sudden cardiac arrest, say the University of Arizona scientists who developed it.

Cardiac arrests that occur outside the hospital kill nearly 400,000 Americans every year, second only to all cancer deaths combined.

The “new CPR” — eliminating the need for mouth-to-mouth breathing — was unveiled in 2003 after a decade of research by UA cardiac experts, who have worked for its widespread acceptance ever since.

They received new ammunition for their argument recently with the results of two large international studies comparing the two CPR methods.

When performed by bystanders who witnessed a person collapse from cardiac arrest, the two methods achieved similar survival rates for the victims, studies in Sweden and Japan found.

In the larger study, of nearly 10,000 Swedish patients who suffered sudden cardiac arrest (usually from a heart attack or arrhythmia), about 7 percent were saved by bystanders who performed CPR using either mouth-to-mouth breathing with chest compressions, or chest compressions only.

In a similar study of about 5,000 Japanese patients, around 4 percent were saved by people using the traditional CPR or chest-compression-only CPR.