Defibrillation in refractory cardiac arrest: knowledge gaps and future priorities

Refractory shockable cardiac arrest remains associated with poor outcomes despite prompt cardiopulmonary resuscitation and repeated defibrillation. This review summarizes recent evidence on ventricular fibrillation (VF) phenotyping, vector-change (VC) defibrillation, double sequential external defibrillation (DSED), waveform analysis, and emerging decision-support approaches.

Refractory VF is increasingly recognized as a heterogeneous syndrome rather than a uniform failure of repeated shocks. True shock-refractory or incessant VF, recurrent VF, and mixed phenotypes differ in frequency, prognosis, and potential therapeutic targets. VC defibrillation using an antero-posterior pad configuration may improve defibrillation efficacy in selected patients, whereas DSED represents a more complex intervention whose effectiveness may depend on shock vector, timing, inter-shock interval, and system-level implementation. Physiological and electrical markers, including amplitude spectrum area (AMSA), transthoracic impedance (TTI), and ECG-based predictive models, may enable earlier identification of patients unlikely to respond to continued conventional defibrillation.

Current evidence does not support a single rigid treatment algorithm for refractory VF. Future research should move beyond shock-count-based escalation and prospectively evaluate physiology-informed, adaptive strategies integrating rhythm phenotype, AMSA, TTI, CPR quality, machine-learning-based prediction, and operational feasibility within pragmatic clinical trials.