Current state of follow-up care for patients with Hymenoptera venom anaphylaxis in southwest Germany: Major impact of early information.

Background: Up to 3.5% of the population experience anaphylactic reactions in response to Hymenoptera stings. Current guidelines are in place for the diagnostic workup and follow-up care of patients with Hymenoptera venom anaphylaxis (HVA).

[German resuscitation registry : science and resuscitation research].

Sudden death due to cardiac arrest represents one of the greatest challenges facing modern medicine, not only because of the massive number of cases involved but also because of its tremendous social and economic impact. For many years, the magic figure of 1 per 1000 inhabitants per year was generally accepted as an estimate of the annual incidence of sudden death in the industrialized world, with a survival rate of 6 %. This estimate was based on large numbers of published reports of local, regional, national and multinational experience in the management of cardiac arrest.

[Mechanical resuscitation assist devices].

In Germany 100,000-160,000 people suffer from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) annually. The incidence of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) after OHCA varies between emergency ambulance services but is in the range of 30-90 CPR attempts per 100,000 inhabitants per year. Basic life support (BLS) involving chest compressions and ventilation is the key measure of resuscitation.

Hypertonic saline infusion during resuscitation from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: a matched-pair study from the German Resuscitation Registry.

Aim: Survival rates after out-of-hospital-cardiac-arrest (OHCA) differ widely between EMS systems. Since hypertonic saline appears to improve long-term outcome after OHCA, some local EMS systems have included it in their treatment protocols for OHCA. Our first aim was to give a quality review of one of these protocols.

[Bystander resuscitation: the impact of first aid on survival].

About 75000 people suffer from sudden cardiac arrest in Germany every year. 47% of all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) in Germany are bystander witnessed, but in only 16.1% is bystander-initiated CPR undertaken.