ArticleClinical research in cardiology : official journal of the German Cardiac Society2026
Beyond the protocol: adherence to ECPR selection criteria and outcomes after Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA)-insights from the German Cardiac Arrest Registry (G-CAR).
Article in Clinical research in cardiology : official journal of the German Cardiac Society, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundExtracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR) is a potential treatment for selected patients with refractory out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) emphasize the importance of appropriate patient selection. Expert consensus statements recommend six criteria for ECPR suitability: age ≤ 75 years, witnessed OHCA, bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), no-flow time ≤ 5 min (min), low-flow time ≤ 60 min, and an initial shockable rhythm. Although widely accepted, these items are not supported by robust data and adherence varies greatly. We present an analysis from the German Cardiac Arrest Registry (G-CAR) describing the current state of ECPR across participating centers.
resultsOf 1,644 patients in G-CAR, 576 patients (34.6%) were admitted with ongoing CPR. Of these, 162 (28.0%) were treated with ECPR. Only 18 patients (11.0%) met all six ECPR criteria, with the majority displaying five (37.0%) or four (25.9%) characteristics. Overall, rates of favorable neurological survival at 30 days did not differ between patients treated with ECPR and those treated conventionally (8.6% vs. 5.6%, p = 0.25). When stratified according to the number of criteria, the probability of survival was higher in patients meeting all six or five compared to those meeting one to four criteria (20.0% vs. 11.9% vs. 1.4%; p = 0.028). A similar gradient in survival according to the number of fulfilled criteria was observed in conventionally treated patients.
conclusionsAdherence to proposed ECPR selection criteria was low in this real-world cohort, potentially contributing to lower survival rates compared with results from RCTs. However, when all criteria were fulfilled, survival rates were significantly higher, underscoring the importance of stringent patient selection.
Indexed as
Identifiers
42084737What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.