338 Causes and hospital mortality in a large cohort of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest

Results 983 patients were admitted from January 2000 to August 2008.In patients without an obvious non-cardiac cause of arrest, a coronary angiogram followed if necessary by a coronary angioplasty was performed at admission. The median age was 58 years (range 84.39) and 74% were male. Past or current cigarette smoking was noted in 54%, hypertension in 35% and hypercholesterolemia in 23%. The causes of OHCA were an acute coronary syndrome (ACS=Gr1) in 389 pts (40%), primary ventricular arrhythmia (VT-FV=Gr2) in 154 pts (16%), cardiac failure (=Gr3) in 35 pts (3%), acute respiratory failure (=Gr4) in 186 pts (19%), neurological failure (=Gr5) in 41 pts (4%), unknown (=Gr6) in 71 pts (7%) and others causes(=Gr7) in 104 pts (11%). Overall, the mortality rate of the entire cohort was 68%; mortality rates observed in each subgroup are displayed in the figure.