Review article
Clinical Trials
Tom P. Aufderheide
; Associate Chair of Research Affairs, Department of Emergency Medicine, 9200 W. Wisconsin Ave., Pavilion 1P, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53226, USA
Abstract
The clinical practice of resuscitation science is dependent on discoveries generated in the basic science and animal
laboratory and then translated into clinical trials for application in humans. The successful implementation of prospective,
randomized, controlled, clinical trials in the field of cardiac arrest remains challenging and continues to evolve. Funding
for clinical trials of cardiac arrest is limited, and there are significant obstacles to performing such studies because of the
inability to obtain informed consent under these emergency circumstances. The absence of reliable national statistics on
cardiac arrest, evaluation of neurological outcome, and potential confounders such as post-resuscitation hospital-based
care and quality of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) continue to challenge cardiac arrest clinical trials. Nonetheless,
the immense public health burden of cardiac arrest is being recognized, appropriate public health initiatives to address the
problem are being implemented, and the resuscitation research community is meeting this challenge.
Keywords
resuscitation; clinical trials; funding; informed consent; neurological and functional assessments; standards
Hrčak ID:
59440
URI
Publication date:
1.9.2010.
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