THE CHALLENGE
There are over 350,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests each year, with each patient seen by EMS receiving a liter of crystalloid solution (usually 0.9% saline). Only about two thirds of those patients have a pulse return; the remainder die from the condition called pulseless electrical activity (PEA) or electromechanical disassociation. PEA can potentially be treated by addressing an underlying condition, but it is speculated that PEA is more common in hospitalized patients, exposing a serious and sometimes untreatable condition.
OUR SOLUTION
Steven Poelzing his team at Virginia Tech have developed a fluid composition that can be administered by paramedics or hospital workers during resuscitation or after the diagnosis of PEA as a replacement for the commonly used 0.9% saline solution. This new, patented solution enhances cardiac mechanical function and can restore contractions faster than currently available solutions including Lactated Ringers or Normosol. The fluid can also be used as an adjuvant for inotropic compounds like epinephrine to further enhance cardia contraction.
Elevating Na+ in the perfusate prolongs time to LVDP collapse in early ischemia. The graph on the left shows an overlay of representative LVDP traces from hearts perfused with a 145 mM Na+ or 155 mM Na+ solution. The graph on the right shows the time to 50% LVDP decay for 145 mM Na+ (n=8) and 155 mM Na+ (n=8) solutions.