Acute cardiac care & resuscitation
Post-Shock Asystole in Patients Dying Out of Hospital While Wearing a Cardioverter Defibrillator
Authors' conclusion
Post-shock asystole appears to be common in patients who die OOH after being shocked by a WCD for VF or VT. PS-A also occurs after inappropriate WCD shocks for non-VF/VT rhythms. Implanted pacemakers may not prevent PS-A after a WCD shock.
Study context
- Population
- Patients dying out of hospital (OOH) while wearing a wearable cardioverter-defibrillator (WCD) who received a shock, US FDA MAUDE reports, January 2017 to March 2022
- Participants
- 313 patients
- Exposure
- Ventricular fibrillation (VF) vs ventricular tachycardia (VT) vs Non-VF/VT
- VFn = 150
- VTn = 90
- Non-VF/VTn = 73
- Outcome
- Post-shock asystole (PS-A) and post-shock bradycardia (PS-B; <50 beats/min)
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
- Post-shock asystole (PS-A)
- 204 (65.2%)
- PS-B
- 111 (35.5%)
- PS-A patients who also had PS-B
- 85 (41.7%)
- PS-A patients with initial shocked rhythm VF or VT
- 185 (90.7%)
- PS-A patients initially inappropriately shocked (AF/SVT n = 7, idioventricular n = 8, sinus n = 4)
- 19 (9.3%)
- PS-A after first WCD shock
- 118 (63.8%)
- PS-A after first, second or third shock
- 159 (85.9%)
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Post-shock heart block
- Patients with post-shock heart block
- 7
Patients with permanent pacemakers
- Patients with permanent pacemakers
- 8
- Noncapture and/or asystole after 1 to 4 shocks
- 7
- Pacemaker nonfunctional after 1 shock
Original publication
Post-Shock Asystole in Patients Dying Out of Hospital While Wearing a Cardioverter Defibrillator. JACC Clin Electrophysiol. Published 22 February 2023. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →