Trends in presumed drug overdose out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in San Francisco, 2015-2023.

INTRODUCTION: Estimates of the prevalence of drug-related out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) vary, ranging from 1.8% to 10.0% of medical OHCA. However, studies conducted prior to the recent wave of fentanyl deaths likely underestimate the current prevalence of drug-related OHCA. We evaluated recent trends in drug-related OHCA, hypothesizing that the proportion of presumed drug-related OHCA treated by emergency medical services (EMS) has increased since 2015. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective analysis of OHCA patients treated by EMS providers in San Francisco, California between 2015 and 2023. Participants included OHCA cases in which resuscitation was attempted by EMS. The study exposure was the year of arrest. Our primary outcome was the occurrence of drug-related OHCA, defined as the EMS impression of OHCA caused by a presumed or known overdose of medication(s) or drug(s). RESULTS: From 2015 to 2023, 5044 OHCA resuscitations attended by EMS (average 561 per year) met inclusion criteria. The median age was 65 (IQR 50-79); 3508 (69.6%) were male. The EMS impression of arrest etiology was drug-related in 446/5044 (8.8%) of OHCA. The prevalence of presumed drug-related OHCA increased significantly each year from 1% in 2015 to 17.6% in 2023 (p-value for trend = 0.0001). After adjustment, presumed drug-related OHCA increased by 30% each year from 2015-2023. CONCLUSION: Drug-related OHCA is an increasingly common etiology of OHCA. In 2023, one in six OHCA was presumed to be drug related. Among participants less than 60 years old, one in three OHCA was presumed to be drug related.

Prehospital, post-ROSC blood pressure and associated neurologic outcome.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationship between hypotension and neurologic outcome in adults with return of spontaneous circulation after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. METHODS: Blood pressure and medication data were extracted from adult patients who had ROSC after OHCA in Alameda County and matched with neurologic outcome using the CARES database from January 1, 2018 through July 1, 2019. We used univariate logistic regression with p ≤ 0.2 followed by multivariate logistic regression and reported an odds ratio with 95% confidence intervals. RESULTS: Among the 781 adult patients who had ROSC after OHCA, 107 (13.7%) were noted to be hypotensive and 61 (57% of the hypotensive group) received vasopressors. Patients with a final prehospital blood pressure recording of <90 mmHg were more likely to have a poor neurologic outcome (adjusted odds ratio 2.13, adj p = 0.048). About twice as many patients who were not hypotensive had a good neurologic outcome compared to hypotensive patients who had a good neurologic outcome (23% to 10.3%). Additionally, patients who were hypotensive and did not receive vasopressors had a similar neurologic outcome compared to patients who did receive vasopressors. CONCLUSION: Prehospital post-ROSC hypotension was associated with worse neurologic outcome and giving hypotensive patients vasopressors may not improve neurologic outcome in the prehospital setting.