Each year, approximately 1,200 people in Sweden suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrest due to ventricular fibrillation, and only 1 in 3 survives. The most important treatment for these patients is defibrillation with an automated external defibrillator (AED) as early as possible. Unfortunately, not all patients respond to treatment, and survival decreases with each failed defibrillation attempt. A new method—using two defibrillators and double sequential defibrillation (DSD)—has shown promising results in a recently published canadian studyThere, DSD was tested after three failed standard defibrillation attempts. However, the method is not yet recommended as a routine treatment.  

 

The aim of this project is to investigate whether early double defibrillation (i.e., before three failed standard defibrillation attempts) in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest with ventricular fibrillation can increase survival rates compared to standard defibrillation. As a first step, a Swedish pilot study is planned to evaluate the feasibility and safety of early DSD.