Cardiac Science AEDs to meet AHA guidelines

Cardiac Science (Bothell, Washington), a maker of defibrillation products, reported that its entire line of Powerheart automated external defibrillators (AEDs) will meet the newly updated American Heart Association (Dallas) Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care, as well as the recently released European Resuscitation Council Guidelines for Resuscitation.

Future Powerheart AEDs also will incorporate the new guidelines, it said. In addition, all Powerheart AEDs currently in use today are capable of being reconfigured to support the new recommended one-shock defibrillation protocol. Software updates to implement the new guidelines in current Powerheart AEDs will be available during 2006, the company said.

Dialysis patients fare better with surgical fistulas

Kaiser Permanente Southern California (Pasadena, California) investigators have shown that dialysis patients treated using surgically created arteriovenous fistulas, a joining of a vein to an artery, enjoy markedly improved outcomes.

Results indicate a progressive increase in the fistula rate from 30% in 1997 to 62% in 2003. At the same time, the need for re-intervention on the access was cut almost in half.

Kaiser Permanente Southern California physicians have demonstrated that a multidisciplinary continuous quality improvement program has improved care for dialysis patients whose survival depends upon repeated access to a patient's circulatory system.

The study is published in the January issue of Annals of Vascular Surgery.