Perspectives and new approaches for improving cardiopulmonary resuscitation in adults beyond current guidelines

Setting clear priorities for the sequence and importance of actions during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is of utmost importance for future guidelines. Unless performed under the rare condition of hypoxic arrest, combined compression and ventilation is usually not necessary in one-rescuer resuscitation of adults. After notifying the emergency medical services (EMS), precordial compression at a rate of 100/min is just as effective or may even be preferable in the majority of cases caused by arrhythmic arrest. Considering the pathophysiological and experimental evidence, chest compression has proven to be more important, even in multi-rescuer settings, than resuscitation ventilation with its problems and risks. International recommendations for compression without respiration for rescuers unwilling to perform resuscitation ventilation or for so-called telephone CPR were not included in the guidelines of the European Resuscitation Council (ERC) probably for reasons of brevity and simplification. However, training for basic cardiopulmonary resuscitation of adults with cardiac arrest should also stress the importance of chest compression over ventilation. Moreover, current studies controversially discuss the optimal time point of defibrillation after collapse. These findings point to the enormous demand for research in the field of cardiopulmonary resuscitation.