U of M Study: Dangers of Cardiac Arrest Hold Steady for 30 Years ANN ARBOR, MI (Michigan Radio) -

A new University of Michigan study finds out-of-hospital heart arrest rates have not improved during the past 30 years.

While overall cardiac care has improved in recent years, this year more than 160 thousand Americans will suffer a full cardiac arrest away from a hospital. Less than 8 percent will survive. That's about the same percentage as in 1979.

"We've spent a whole lot of money, billions and billions of dollars, both the federal and state funding on this, and really haven't made strives improving that very dismal survival rate," says Dr. Comilla Sasson, an emergency medicine physician in the U of M Health System.

Sasson says communities that encourage bystanders to give CPR immediately to people in cardiac arrest have higher survival rates. But only 1 in 3 heart arrest patients get CPR from a bystander.

The study appears in the current issue of Circulation. © Copyright 2010, Michigan Radio