[Indications, procedure and outcome of prehospital emergency resuscitative thoracotomy-a systematic literature search].

Background: Prehospital resuscitative thoracotomy (PHRT) is a controversially discussed measure for the acute treatment of traumatic cardiac arrest (TCA) recommended by the current guidelines of the European Resuscitation Council (ERC). The aim of this work is the comprehensive presentation and summary of the available literature with the underlying hypothesis that the available publications show the feasibility and survival following PHRT in patients with TCA with a good neurological outcome.

Method: A systematic literature search was performed in the databases PubMed, EMBASE, Google Scholar, Springer LINK and Cochrane. The study selection, data extraction and evaluation of bias potential were performed independently by two authors. The outcome of patients with TCA after PHRT was selected as the primary endpoint.

Results: A total of 4616 publications were found of which 21 publications with a total of 287 patients could be included in the analyses. For a detailed descriptive analysis, 15 publications with a total of 205 patients were suitable. The TCA of these patients was most commonly caused by pericardial tamponade, thoracic vascular injuries and severe extrathoracic multiple injuries. In 24% of the cases TCA occurred in the presence of the emergency physician. Clamshell thoracotomy (53%) was used preclinically more often than anterolateral thoracotomy (47%). Of the PHRT patients after TCA 12% (25/205) left the hospital alive, 9% (n = 19/205) with good neurological outcome and 1% (n = 3/205) with poor neurological outcome (according to the Glasgow outcome scale, GOS).

Conclusion: The prognosis of TCA seems to be much better than has long been assumed. Decisive for the success of resuscitation efforts in TCA seems to be the immediate, partly invasive treatment of all reversible causes. The measures for TCA recommended by the ERC resuscitation guidelines, seem to be poorly implemented, especially in the preclinical setting. A controversy regarding the recommendations of the guidelines is the question of whether a PHRT can be successfully implemented and if the comprehensive introduction in Germany seems to be meaningful. Despite the recommendation of the guidelines, this systematic review and meta-analysis underlines the lack of high-quality evidence on PHRT, whereby a survival probability to hospital discharge of 12% was reported, of which 75% had a good neurological outcome. The risk of bias of the results in individual publications as well as in this review is high. Further systematic research in the field of preclinical trauma resuscitation is particularly necessary also for acceptance of the guidelines.