New Hormone Seen As Key Breakthough in Restarting Hearts

Summary

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A hormone called vasopressin is clearly better at saving the lives of patients whose hearts have stopped than the drug doctors have been using for the past 100 years, according to a study that could transform the treatment of sudden cardiac arrest.

For a century, cardiac arrest victims have been given epinephrine, a synthetic adrenaline that constricts blood vessels and boosts blood pressure. It is often administered when shocking the heart with a defibrillator fails to revive the patient.

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New Hormone Seen As Key Breakthough in Restarting Hearts

Using vasopressin instead improved the chances of reaching a hospital alive by about 40 percent, and tripled the chances of going home from the hospital, in patients ...

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