Thrombolysis and cardiac arrest

Abstract

Cardiac arrest (CA) is a serious clinical condition that might be responsible in many cases for death, in other at least for development of irreversible multiple organ dysfunctions. During and after the CA a significant coagulopathy develops causing a decrease in proper tissue perfusion even if an early return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) is achieved (no-reflow phenomenon). Administration of thrombolytics can solve the problem by destructing the blood clot in both macrocirculation and microcirculation. Results of some clinical trials proving an effectiveness of thrombolysis were published in the literature. Generally, it was done by describing its positive influence on some important clinical outcome measures (24hour survival, number of hospital admissions, better neurological status etc.) without significant increase in the number of bleeding complications. However, recent pivotal evidence based medicine (EBM) trial represented by TROICA study did not confirm the expected positive results. Because of that and also for other reasons (cost, fear of adverse effects, little practice etc.) thrombolysis, although theoretically promising therapeutical intervention, is not overly recommended and used in routine clinical practice in both out-of-hospital and in-hospital settings (Fig. 2, Tab. 4, Ref. 24). Full Text in free PDF www.bmj.sk.