More heart patients could be saved thanks to a new type of "advanced" CPR which involves hooking up patients to an artificial lung machine. People who suffer cardiac arrest – when the heart stops pumping blood around the body – could be offered the advanced form of resuscitation if they do not respond to traditional CPR thanks to a new service in the Thames Valley region.
The service, the first of its kind in the UK, will see patients taken to Harefield Hospital by Thames Valley Air Ambulance to receive "E-CPR". E-CPR is a resuscitation method which sees patients connected to a machine which pumps blood through an artificial lung outside the body when a patient’s own circulatory system is unable to function properly.
Patients will receive CPR while hooked up to the machine, also known as an ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation). A small study in 2020 suggested that the advanced treatment can improve survival rates among patients compared to standard CPR.
