Introduction

Methods

Results

Discussion

Limitations

Conclusion

References

ABSTRACT

Objectives: The Interdisciplinary Cardiac Arrest Research Review (ICARE) group was formed in 2018 to conduct a systematic annual search of peer-reviewed literature relevant to cardiac arrest (CA). The goals of the review are to illustrate best practices and help reduce knowledge silos by disseminating clinically relevant advances in the field of CA across disciplines. Methods: An electronic search of PubMed using keywords related to CA was conducted. Title and abstracts retrieved by these searches were screened for relevancy, separated by article type (original research or review), and sorted into 7 categories. Screened manuscripts underwent standardized scoring of overall methodological quality and importance. Articles scoring higher than 99 percentiles by category-type were selected for full critique. Systematic differences between editors and reviewer scores were assessed using Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Results: A total of 9119 articles were identified on initial search; of these, 1214 were scored after screening for relevance and deduplication, and 80 underwent full critique. Prognostication & Outcomes category comprised 25% and Epidemiology & Public Health 17.5% of fully reviewed articles. There were no differences between editor and reviewer scoring. Conclusions: The total number of articles demonstrates the need for an accessible source summarizing high-quality research findings to serve as a high-yield reference for clinicians and scientists seeking to absorb the ever-growing body of CA-related literature. This may promote further development of the unique and interdisciplinary field of CA medicine.

INTRODUCTION

An individual of any age may suffer a cardiac arrest (CA) without warning [1]. The 2018 AHA guidelines defines CA as “the cessation of cardiac mechanical activity, as confirmed by the absence of signs of circulation”[۲]. The etiology of CA can be broadly categorized to cardiac vs. non-cardiac [3]. The precise estimation of the overall CA incidence is difficult, as epidemiologic reports often comprise CA subtypes according to location of occurrence (in-hospital or out-ofhospital), Emergency Medical Services (EMS) involvement, etiology, and age groups. In addition, the lack of a comprehensive and uniform national or international standardized repository of data in CA further challenges an accurate epidemiologic appraisal. OHCA accounts for over 350,000 deaths in the United States annually [4], and continues to be a major public health challenge worldwide. Despite advances in resuscitation and critical care medicine, large variation in cardiac arrest survival rates exists at community, national, and global levels [5, 6]. Recognizing the need for a concise and accessible literature source to disseminate the findings on the growing knowledge in the CA field, the Interdisciplinary Cardiac Arrest Research Review (ICARE) Group was created in 2018 with the goals of disseminating evidence on best practices, stimulating further research lines, and promoting team science with a transdisciplinary approach to the field of CA medicine. This work was inspired by the success of Global Emergency Medicine Literature Review (GEMLR) initiative [7] in facilitating awareness of research published in relation to global health.