Cardiopulmonary resuscitation in medical cancer patients: the experience of a medical intensive-care unit of a cancer centre

This study aimed to determine the effectiveness and potential indications of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in medicalcancer patients, by retrospective analysis of the records of the patients admitted between November 1985 and January 1992 in the medical intensive-care unit of a cancer hospital following cardiac arrest. Cardiac arrest occurred in 49 cancer patients. CPR was successful in 19 (39%) but only 5 (10%) were discharged alive from the hospital. CPR was successful in all 8 patients in which cardiac arrest was the consequence of an acute cardiovascular drug toxicity, even if the cancer was metastatic and the purpose of treatment not curative, while it was effective in only 25% of those where cardiac arrest was an ultimate complication of various problems such as septic shock or respiratory failure complicating the neoplastic disease. The results suggest that in cancer, as in other types of disease, CPR is mainly indicated when cardiac arrest is the consequence of an acute insult.