Inserting Breathing Tube May Not Be Best for Victims of Cardiac Arrest

Patients in large study seemed to do better when emergency workers used older ventilation method

By Barbara Bronson Gray
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Jan. 14 (HealthDay News) — When a person’s heart stops beating, most emergency personnel have been taught to first insert a breathing tube through the victim’s mouth, but a new Japanese study found that approach may actually lower the chances of survival and lead to worse neurological outcomes.

Health care professionals have long been taught the A-B-C method, focusing first on the airway and breathing and then circulation, through hand compressions on the chest, explained Dr. Donald Yealy, chair of emergency medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and co-author of an editorial accompanying the study.

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