Annual patterns in the outcomes and post-arrest care for pediatric out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: A nationwide multicenter prospective registry in Japan.

AIM: Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) has a poor prognosis in children; however, the annual patterns of prognosis and treatment have not been fully investigated.

METHODS: From the Japanese Association for Acute Medicine OHCA registry, a multicenter prospective observational registry in Japan, we identified pediatric patients (zero to 17 years old) between June 2014 and December 2019. The primary outcome was one-month survival. We investigated the annual patterns in patient characteristics, treatment, and one-month prognosis.

RESULTS: During the study period, 1188 patients were eligible for analysis. For all years, the zero-year-old group accounted for a large percentage of the total population (between 30% and 40%). There were significant increases in the rates of bystander-initiated cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR; from 50.6% to 62.3%, p = 0.003), dispatcher instructions (from 44.7% to 65.7%, p = 0.001), and adrenaline administration (from 2.4% to 6.9%, p = 0.014) over time, whereas the rate of advanced airway management decreased significantly (from 17.7% to 8.8%, p = 0.003). The odds ratios for one-month survival adjusted for potential resuscitation factors also did not change significantly (from 7.1% to 10.3%, adjusted odds ratio for one-year increment = 0.98, confidence interval: 0.86-1.11).

CONCLUSION: Despite an increase in the rate of bystander-initiated CPR and pre-hospital adrenaline administration, there was no significant change in one-month survival.