Cardiac arrest is a catastrophic event that affects 350 000 people each year in Europe. With rapid cardiopulmonary resuscitation the heart can be restarted in some cases and these patients require treatment in an intensive care unit. The risk hypoxic brain injury and persisting coma is high and one reason is lack of adequate blood flow. One way of maintaining blood supply to organs such as the brain and the heart is making sure that the blood pressure is high enough. Currently we do not know how high it should be, and international Guidelines recommend a target of at least 65-70 mmHg. We have in a pilot study including 120 patients showed that if we target a higher blood pressure of 80-100 mmHg the magnitude of cardiac and brain injury may be decreased. However we need to conduct a larger trial in order to make sure that this really benefits patients. Blood pressure management is easy and cheap and this treatment modality has the potential to save many lives worldwide.

2021

2025