UAB Leads National Cardiac Arrest Study

EMS WORLD STAFF ON DEC 5, 2015
SOURCE: UAB

UAB researchers are studying two breathing tubes that EMS crews use to treat cardiac arrest patients, including this one, the King laryngeal tube.

Investigators at the University of Alabama at Birmingham want to determine whether using the King LT produces better results than existing endotracheal tubes in cases of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

UAB’s Alabama Resuscitation Center is spearheading the national trial involving paramedics in five U.S. metropolitan areas.

“Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is a major public health problem in this country with some 300,000 cases per year,” said Henry Wang, MD, professor and vice chair for Research in the UAB Department of Emergency Medicine. “Only about 10% survive, and airway management during cardiac arrest is an extremely important aspect of treatment.”

Wang is the national principal investigator for the Pragmatic Airway Resuscitation Trial — or PART — which will examine the endotracheal tube’s performance against the King laryngeal tube to see whether either produces higher 72-hour survival rates in adults with cardiac arrest treated by EMS practitioners.

“While both are commonly used by paramedics, we do not have a consensus as to which is a better choice for use in adult cardiac arrest,” Wang said. “The endotracheal tube can be difficult and time-consuming to insert properly. The King LT is just one of several newer airway devices that show great promise but need to be studied.”

PART will be conducted in Birmingham, Dallas, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Portland. Locally, the Bessemer Fire Department is the first EMS agency in the country to take part.

PART is supported by a grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. The study is a project of the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium, a group of United States and Canadian research institutions. UAB’s Alabama Resuscitation Center is led by Wang, along with Jeff Kerby, MD, PhD, director of the Division of Trauma, Burns and Surgical Critical Care, and Jean-François Pittet, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Anesthesiology.

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