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. 2010 Jul;3(3):267-72.
doi: 10.4103/0974-2700.66528.

Cardiac arrest in children

Erika E Tress  1 , Patrick M Kochanek, Richard A Saladino, Mioara D Manole
Affiliations

Cardiac arrest in children

Erika E Tress et al. J Emerg Trauma Shock. 2010 Jul.

Abstract

Major advances in the field of pediatric cardiac arrest (CA) were made during the last decade, starting with the publication of pediatric Utstein guidelines, the 2005 recommendations by the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation, and culminating in multicenter collaborations. The epidemiology and pathophysiology of in-hospital and out-of-hospital CA are now well described. Four phases of CA are described and the term "post-cardiac arrest syndrome" has been proposed, along with treatment goals for each of its four phases: immediate post-arrest, early post-arrest, intermediate and recovery phase. Hypothermia is recommended to be considered as a therapy for post-CA syndrome in comatose patients after CA, and large multicenter prospective studies are underway. We reviewed landmark articles related to pediatric CA published during the last decade. We present the current knowledge of epidemiology, pathophysiology and treatment of CA relevant to pre-hospital and acute care health practitioners.

Keywords: Cardiac arrest; cardiopulmonary resuscitation; emergency medicine; pediatrics.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: None declared.

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