External cardiac massage using a hand-powered chest compressor on dogs with ventricular fibrillation.

We devised a hand-powered portable chest compressor for external cardiac massage. The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy and safety of this device in comparison to manual chest compression in dogs with ventricular fibrillation. Five out of 7 dogs that received manual chest compression during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) were successfully resuscitated. Seven out of 8 dogs that received mechanical chest compression with this device during CPR were successfully resuscitated. There were no differences between the two methods in maximum arterial pressure at 1 and 10 min after the initiation of CPR. There was also no difference between the two methods in pulmonary arterial pressure or arterial and mixed venous blood gases during CPR. Minimum arterial pressure during CPR was higher in dogs receiving mechanical chest compression than those receiving manual chest compression. This study reveals that the hand-powered chest compressor is equally efficient for external cardiac massage as manual cardiac massage. Moreover, this device can be useful in a situation where manual compression has to be interrupted, such as during litter transport of the patient, and so on.