Abstract
Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest claims the lives of approximately 382,800 adult Americans each year. The majority of these victims have underlying structural heart disease, usually in the form of coronary atherosclerosis. Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest occurring in public places is usually caused by a chance arrhythmic event that is triggered by an interaction between structural heart abnormalities and transient, functional electrophysiological disturbances. In such cases, the single most important determinant of survival is the time interval from initiation of the cardiac arrest until defibrillation. Waveform capnography, regionalized post-resuscitation care with therapeutic hypothermia, bundled goal-directed therapy, and frequent EEG (preferably continuous) recording are now important American Heart Association CPR Guideline recommendations.