ANN ARBOR, Mich., Sep 18, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- African-Americans have a 12
percent less chance of surviving cardiac arrest while in the hospital, compared
with white patients, U.S. researchers say.
The study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, found
more than half of black patients were successfully revived after an in-hospital
cardiac arrest, compared with 67.5 percent of white patients.
The racial difference in lower post-resuscitation survival -- 45.2 percent for
blacks versus 55.5 percent for whites -- was largely explained by the quality of
the hospital.
"The link between the quality of the hospital and lower rates of post
resuscitation survival is particularly striking," Dr. Brahmajee Nallamothu of
the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor, the study's senior
author, said in a statement. "It suggests that there are important
facility-level characteristics at the hospitals where black patients are most
commonly treated."
Cardiologists from St. Luke's and the University of Michigan Health System,
along with colleagues from the University of Washington, Yale University and
Duke University, evaluated the care given 10,011 patients who underwent
defibrillation at hospitals across the United States.
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Copyright 2009 by United Press International