Amiodarone or nifekalant upon hospital arrival for refractory ventricular fibrillation after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

Background: We evaluated the association between nifekalant or amiodarone on hospital admission and in-hospital mortality for cardiac arrest patients with persistent ventricular fibrillation on hospital arrival.

Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study using the Japanese Diagnosis Procedure Combination inpatient database. We identified 2961 patients who suffered cardiogenic out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and who had ventricular fibrillation on hospital arrival between July 2007 and March 2013.