
Areas: Birmingham, Black Country, Herefordshire, Worcestershire
Adrenaline was introduced as a treatment for cardiac arrest before clinical trials were common. Adrenaline had not been fully tested to find out if it is helpful or harmful for patients who have a cardiac arrest outside of hospital, before this study.
Many research studies suggested that, while adrenaline may restart the heart initially, it may lower overall survival rates and increase brain damage and there were real concerns in the clinical and research community that current practice might have been harming patients.
West Midlands Ambulance Service was one of the five ambulance services who took part in PARAMEDIC2 and tested adrenaline against placebo in a randomised controlled trial. The study showed that adrenaline makes a small improvement in survival to 30 days, and that early recognition of cardiac arrest, early CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and early defibrillation (electric shock) are the most effective treatments in cardiac arrest. For the full results, please click here