A call to arms to reduce premature deaths by using inexpensive resuscitation care

Two hundred seventy thousand people in the US and 450,000 people in Europe experience out-of-hospital cardiac arrest each year. Perceived poor prognosis and expense of care of patients resuscitated from cardiac arrest remain barriers to implementation of effective therapies. In this issue of Critical Care, Graf and colleagues have provided a programmatic evaluation of the costs and consequences of intensive care after resuscitation from cardiac arrest. Thirty-one percent of the cohort that survived to be cared for in the intensive care setting were still alive 5 years after hospital discharge. The health-related quality of life of this group of 5-year survivors was similar to that of matched healthy controls, and the cost per quality-adjusted life year gained was similar to or less than the cost of other commonly used medical interventions. We need to change the culture of resuscitation and recognize that cardiac arrest is a treatable condition that is associated with acceptable quality of life and costs of care after resuscitation.