SAN ANTONIO – Open-chest cardiac massage offers no benefit over closed-chest compressions in patients with traumatic cardiac arrest, according to a prospective observational study from the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore.
The investigators compared 16 open-chest cardiac massage (OCCM) patients with 17 closed-chest compression (CCC) patients delivered directly to the level 1 trauma center in cardiac arrest. The open-massage group received closed compressions for a mean of 66 seconds before being converted to open massage for reasons that weren’t captured by the data.
Dr. Matthew Bradley
End-tidal carbon dioxide (ETCO2) – the gold standard for determining the effectiveness of chest compressions and return of spontaneous circulation – was used as a surrogate for cardiac output and adequacy of resuscitation. Continuous high-resolution ETCO2 measurements were collected every 6 seconds in both groups.
When periods of OCCM were compared to equivalent periods of CCC, there were no differences in the initial, final, peak, or mean ETCO2 values, and there was no difference in return of spontaneous circulation (OCCM, 23.5% versus CCC, 38.9%; P = .53).
“Unless the patient has a thoracic injury that you need to get into the chest to fix, we didn’t see any benefit in opening the chest just to massage the heart. The data suggest that maybe we shouldn’t be so aggressive in doing open cardiac massage. There’s renewed interest in performing endovascular balloon occlusion techniques for the aorta to obtain hemorrhage control; if you do that and you do closed-chest compressions, it’s just as effective as opening up the chest and doing cardiac massage,” said investigator Dr. Matthew Bradley, a trauma surgeon at the Shock Trauma Center, at the annual scientific assembly of the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma.
Most of the patients were men, and there was a higher percentage of penetrating trauma in the OCCM group (81% versus 47%; P = .04).
The results were the same, however, in subgroup analyses limited to blunt and penetrating trauma.
All of the open massage patients died, but there were a few survivors in the CCC group. Dr. Bradley didn’t think the closed versus open approach was the reason for the survival difference.
Resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta patients were excluded from the trial to prevent confounding.
The investigators have no relevant disclosures.