Logarithm of the absolute correlations of the ECG waveform estimates duration of ventricular fibrillation and predicts successful defibrillation.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Measures of the ventricular fibrillation (VF) waveform may enable better allocation of cardiac arrest treatment by discriminating which patients should receive immediate defibrillation versus alternate therapies such as CPR. We derive a new measure based on the 'roughness' of the VF waveform, the Logarithm of the Absolute Correlations (LAC), and assess and contrast how well the LAC and the previously published scaling exponent (ScE) predict the duration of VF and the likelihood of return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) under both optimal experimental and commercial-defibrillator sampling conditions.

Methods and results

We derived the LAC and ScE from two different populations--an animal study of 44 swine and a retrospective human sample of 158 out-of-hospital VF

SUBMITTER: Sherman LD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2561072 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature