Co-author are: Michiel Hulleman, M.Sc.; Jocelyn Berdowski, Ph.D.; Joris R. de Groot, M.D., Ph.D.; Pascal F.H.M van Dessel, M.D., Ph.D.; C. Jan Willem Borleffs, M.D., Ph.D.; Marieke T. Blom, M.A.; Abdenasser Bardai, M.D.; Carel C. de Cock, M.D., Ph.D.; Hanno L. Tan, M.D., Ph.D.; Jan G.P. Tijssen, Ph.D. and Rudolph W. Koster, M.D., Ph.D. Author disclosures are on the manuscript.
Although the study received no outside funding, the ARREST database is maintained by an unconditional grant of Physio Control Inc. and a grant from the Netherlands Heart Foundation.
Read the latest guidelines for the use of ICDs.
For the latest heart news on Twitter, follow @Heart News. For research updates from the journal Circulation, follow @CircAHA.
Statements and conclusions of study authors published in American Heart Association scientific journals are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect the association's policy or position. The association makes no representation or guarantee as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available at www.heart.org/corporatefunding.
Implantable defibrillators lead to decrease in cardiac arrests
2012-08-07
(Press-News.org) Implantable cardioverter defibrillators account for one-third of the decrease in cardiac arrests caused by ventricular fibrillation in North-Holland, according to research in Circulation, an American Heart Association journal.
VF is an abnormal heart rhythm that makes the heart quiver so it can't pump blood.
ICDs are small electronic devices implanted in the chest that detect potentially fatal abnormal heart rhythms and try to stop them with electric shocks. Generally, only people with a high risk of sudden cardiac death — mostly those at high risk of abnormal heartbeats and survivors of a previous cardiac arrest — receive ICDs.
Previous studies have shown a gradual 15-year decrease in VF-related cardiac arrests suffered outside the hospital setting — from 54 percent to 38 percent in the United States and Europe. However, the incidence of such cardiac arrests from other abnormal heart rhythms continues to increase each year.
Researchers estimated that ICDs prevented 81 cardiac arrests during the 2005-2008 study. To reach this estimate, they multiplied the number of life-threatening abnormal heart rhythms stopped by an ICD by the probability that the rhythm would have led to a call to emergency medical services (EMS) and a resuscitation attempt.
They assumed that a life-threatening abnormal heart rhythm would prompt calls to EMS in 62 percent of cases, and an attempt at resuscitation would occur in 67 percent of those people.
"At least one in 20 ICD carriers can expect a life-saving shock from their device each year," said Rudolph W. Koster, M.D., Ph.D., senior author and associate professor of cardiology at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Researchers used data from the Amsterdam Resuscitation Studies registry of cardiac resuscitations by EMS in the greater Amsterdam area in 1995-1997, and all EMS cardiac arrest interventions in the area in 2005-2008.
Focusing on people known to have VF when EMS arrived, researchers found:
An estimated 339 shocks successfully stopped 194 instances of life-threatening abnormal heart rhythms in 166 people.
The percentage of patients with VF cardiac arrest fell from 63 percent in 1995-1997 to 47 percent in 2005-2008.
The annual incidence of VF cardiac arrests fell significantly, from 21.1 people per 100,000 to 17.4 people per 100,000.
Incidence of cardiac arrests related to other abnormal rhythms increased significantly, from 12.2 per 100,000 to 19.4 per 100,000 annually.
It's unknown what caused the other two-thirds of decline in VF arrests or why cardiac arrests vs. other abnormal heart rhythms have increased.
"The possible mechanisms are only guesses without much solid evidence," Koster said.
It's likely that western countries that implant ICDs for similar indications would see a similar reduction in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest from ventricular fibrillation, he said.
INFORMATION:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
ER overcrowding hurts minorities in California
2012-08-07
Hospitals in areas with large minority populations are more likely to be overcrowded and to divert ambulances, delaying timely emergency care, according to a multi-institutional study focused on California.
The researchers examined ambulance diversion in more than 200 hospitals around the state to assess whether overcrowding in emergency rooms disproportionately affects racial and ethnic minorities. They found that minorities are more at risk of being impacted by ER crowding and by diversion than non-minorities.
The study will be published in the August issue of Health ...
Study finds correlation between injection wells and small earthquakes
2012-08-07
Most earthquakes in the Barnett Shale region of north Texas occur within a few miles of one or more injection wells used to dispose of wastes associated with petroleum production such as hydraulic fracturing fluids, according to new research from The University of Texas at Austin. None of the quakes identified in the two-year study were strong enough to pose a danger to the public.
The study by Cliff Frohlich, senior research scientist at the university's Institute for Geophysics, appears this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"You ...
UMass Amherst, national team define limits of microbial life in an undersea volcano
2012-08-07
AMHERST, Mass. – By some estimates, a third of the Earth's organisms by mass live in our planet's rocks and sediments, yet their lives and ecology are almost a complete mystery. This week, microbiologist James Holden at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and others report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the first detailed data about a group of methane-exhaling microbes that live deep in the cracks of hot undersea volcanoes.
Holden says, "Evidence has built over the past 20 years that there's an incredible amount of biomass in the Earth's subsurface, ...
Possible muscle disease therapeutic target found
2012-08-07
Baltimore, MD — The study of muscular system protein myostatin has been of great interest to researchers as a potential therapeutic target for people with muscular disorders. Although much is known about how myostatin affects muscle growth, there has been disagreement about what types of muscle cells it acts upon. New research from a team including Carnegie's Chen-Ming Fan and Christoph Lepper narrows down the field to one likely type of cell. Their work is published the week of August 6 by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Myostatin is known to inhibit ...
New bird species discovered in 'cloud forest' of Peru
2012-08-07
ITHACA, N.Y. – A colorful, fruit-eating bird with a black mask, pale belly and scarlet breast – never before described by science – has been discovered and named by Cornell University graduates following an expedition to the remote Peruvian Andes.
The Sira Barbet, Capito fitzpatricki, is described in a paper published in the July 2012 issue of The Auk, the official publication of the American Ornithologists' Union.
The new species was discovered during a 2008 expedition led by Michael G. Harvey, Glenn Seeholzer and Ben Winger, young ornithologists who had recently graduated ...
UC San Diego team aims to broaden researcher access to protein simulation
2012-08-07
Using just an upgraded desktop computer equipped with a relatively inexpensive graphics processing card, a team of computer scientists and biochemists at the University of California, San Diego, has developed advanced GPU accelerated software and demonstrated for the first time that this approach can sample biological events that occur on the millisecond timescale.
These results have the potential to bring millisecond scale sampling, now available only on a multi-million dollar supercomputer, to all researchers, and could significantly impact the study of protein dynamics ...
Investing in quality of care for diabetic patients reduces costs
2012-08-07
MINNEAPOLIS (August 6, 2012) – University of Minnesota School of Public Health researchers have found that medical group practices can reduce costs for patients with diabetes by investing in improved quality of care.
In the study, which appears in the August issue of Health Affairs, University of Minnesota researchers analyzed 234 medical group practices providing care for more than 133,000 diabetic patients. After developing a "quality of care" score based on select patient care initiatives, researchers found that medical providers saved an average of $51 in health ...
US-born Latinas at great risk of having babies with retinoblastoma
2012-08-07
In a large epidemiologic study, researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center found that the children of U.S.-born Latina women are at higher risk of having retinoblastoma, a malignant tumor of the retina which typically occurs in children under six.
The study, which focused on babies born in California, also found that offspring of older fathers were at greater risk for retinoblastoma, as were children born to women with sexually transmitted diseases and those born in multiple births, which may indicate an increased risk from in vitro fertilization. Those findings confirmed ...
Seafood, wild or farmed? The answer may be both
2012-08-07
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Most people think of seafood as either wild or farmed, but in fact both categories may apply to the fish you pick up from your grocery store. In recent years, for example, as much as 40 percent of the Alaskan salmon catch originated in fish hatcheries, although it may be labeled "all wild, never farmed."
An article produced by a working group of UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) recommends that when a combination of seafood production techniques are used, this be acknowledged in the marketplace. ...
Preschool children who can pay attention more likely to finish college
2012-08-07
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Young children who are able to pay attention and persist on a task have a 50 percent greater chance of completing college, according to a new study at Oregon State University.
Tracking a group of 430 preschool-age children, the study gives compelling evidence that social and behavioral skills, such as paying attention, following directions and completing a task may be even more crucial than academic abilities.
And the good news for parents and educators, the researchers said, is that attention and persistence skills are malleable and can be taught.
The ...