Acute cardiac care & resuscitation
Manual bag-valve-mask ventilation during out-of-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation: a prospective observational study
Authors' conclusion
In prehospital CPR, bag-valve-mask ventilation frequently resulted in expiratory tidal volumes below guideline targets with substantial leakage.
Study context
- Population
- Adults with non-traumatic OHCA receiving 30:2 cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) with bag-valve-mask ventilation by basic life support (BLS) teams3,017 ventilations
- Participants
- 106 adults
- Outcome
- Expiratory tidal volume (Vte)
Methodological detailsventilation monitor display masked to rescuers
- Ventilation monitor display masked to rescuers
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Vte per patient
Median Vte, first ventilations
273 [IQR 225-350] mL
Median Vte, second ventilations
327 [254-427] mL
Per-patient ventilations delivering <400 mL
79.2 %
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Secondary outcomes
Leak volume
- Median leak volume
- 222[160-261] mL
- Higher leak volume associated with longer inspiratory time and increased I/E ratio
- Two-person technique reduced leak volume by ≈6 %, not statistically significant
Vte change during resuscitation · after 15 min
- Vte increased but remained below guideline targets
- +29 %, p < 0.001
Original publication
Manual bag-valve-mask ventilation during out-of-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation: a prospective observational study. Resuscitation. Published 12 November 2025. doi:10.
Summarised from the published abstract; every number is checked against it