Survival after Resuscitative Thoracotomy in the Emergency Department: An Analysis of 487 Trauma Patients with Prehospital Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation.

Longer prehospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation duration was associated with progressively worse outcomes after resuscitative thoracotomy.

No blunt trauma patient requiring prehospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation survived with favorable neurologic function, whereas all neurologically intact survivors after penetrating trauma underwent 10 minutes or less of prehospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

These findings provide additional evidence to inform future studies evaluating patient selection for resuscitative thoracotomy.