BET 1: Effectiveness of the precordial thump in restoring heart rhythm following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
A short-cut review was carried out to establish whether a precordial thump might be effective in restoring a perfusing heart rhythm in patients with pulseless VT or VF. Forty-seven papers were found in using the reported searches. Of these, three presented the best evidence to answer the clinical question. The author, date and country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, results and study weaknesses of these best papers are tabulated. It is concluded that using the precordial thump in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest rarely results in immediate return of spontaneous circulation and is more commonly associated with rhythm deterioration.
Abstract A coincidence measuring system working with cumulative dead times is presented. The principles of counting for beta, gamma and coincident pulses are developed and the formulae to be applied are derived. A method inspired from selective sampling is also described. All the formulae have been checked with Monte Carlo simulations, showing the ability of accurate measurements even at high count rates.