Survival to leave hospital from ventricular fibrillation.

In 125 consecutive patients with 173 arrests due to ventricular fibrillation, 53 survived to leave hospital. At the initial arrest and using univariate analysis, those who had primary ventricular fibrillation, had ventricular fibrillation less than 24 hours from the onset of symptoms, received the first DC shock less than 1 minute after the onset of ventricular fibrillation, who required less than 4 shocks to terminate the ventricular fibrillation, whose first established rhythm within the first minute of correction of ventricular fibrillation was atrial fibrillation, sinus rhythm or paced rhythm, or who were not receiving prior antiarrhythmic agents had a significantly improved survival to leave hospital (p less than 0.05). To predict survival to leave hospital using discriminant function analysis, the most significant factors ranking in order of importance at the time of the initial arrest were: less than or equal to 5 shocks to correct ventricular fibrillation, no prior antiarrhythmic therapy, primary ventricular fibrillation, and time from onset of ventricular fibrillation to first shock less than 1 minute. For the last arrest, the most significant factors were: no prior cardiac arrest, less than or equal to 5 shocks to correct ventricular fibrillation, no prior antiarrhythmic therapy, and primary ventricular fibrillation. The most significant factors measured at the time of the last arrest provided a better prediction of survival to leave hospital (sensitivity 77%, specificity 75%) than did similarly defined factors for the initial arrest (sensitivity 59%, specificity 89%).