Outcome of cardiac arrest post open heart procedures in a tertiary care hospital

Introduction: Cardiac arrest following an open-heart surgery can be a devastating event, leading to severe mortality and morbidity. Various factors may precipitate cardiac arrest by decreasing perfusion to the heart. Open chest cardiac resuscitation is superior to closed chest cardiac resuscitation in restoring blood flow to the heart. The time between the onset of cardiac arrest to the provision of necessary method of resuscitation is of crucial significance, in deciding the outcome. If perfusion is not restored to the heart, within 5 minutes of closed chest cardiac resuscitation, a resternotomy is indicated. In this article we document number of cardiac arrests after open heart procedures in a tertiary care hospital. Methodology: We retrospectively analyzed 2.5 year data of cardiac patients admitted to our Cardiac Intensive Care Unit from January 2014 to June 2016, after open heart procedures, and recorded the number of cardiac arrests post open heart procedures, and the outcome of the resuscitation. Results: In 2.5 years out of 2505 admissions to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU), 44 (1.76 %) experienced cardiac arrest out of which only 4 (9.09%) patients survived to be discharged home. Conclusion: The results of our study show that the survival rate of cardiac arrests post open heart procedures in our Cardiac Intensive Care Unit is 9.09% as compared to most of published studies from advanced centers showing a survival rate of 25 to 50%. To find out the cause-effect factors was not the objective of this study, but needs to be researched in all Cardiac Intensive Care Units of the country.