Survival after cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the general wards--the results of a dedicated "code" team

We describe our experience with a dedicated cardiopulmonary resuscitation team over 13 months for adults out-of-intensive care unit cardiopulmonary arrests. There were 137 recorded arrests with the majority (69%) happening "out-of-office-hours". The ages of patients ranged from 27 to 95 years, with 42% of patients > or = 70 years old. Spontaneous circulation was established in 38% with transfers to the intensive care unit. However, only 27% of these patients eventually survived to hospital discharge. Thus, there was an overall 10% hospital survival for all adult arrests in the general wards. Those that had return of spontaneous circulation were significantly younger than the nonsurvivors. Patients less than 70 years old had a higher hospital survival rate than those > or = 70 years old (16.5% vs 8.6%, chi 2 < 0.0001).