Outcome Following Cardiopulmonary Arrest Ikram U. Haque, MD a, * , Jai P. Udassi, MD b , Arno L. Zaritsky, MD, FAAP, FCCM a a Division of Pediatric Critical Care, Department of Pediatrics, University of Florida, P.O. Box 100296, Gainesville, FL 32610, USA b Division of Pediatric Critical Care and Cardiology, Department of Pediatrics, University of Florida, P.O. Box 100296, Gainesville, FL 32610, USA The incidence and outcomes of cardiopulmonary arrest (CPA) in children are difficult to precisely measure because of inconsistent terminology, diffi- culty with correctly diagnosing CPA, and a paucity of comprehensive stud- ies. In children, CPA is usually the endpoint of a severe respiratory or circulatory disorder rather than a sudden cardiac arrhythmia complicating an acute coronary event as seen in adults. When an acute arrhythmic event occurs in children, it is rarely attributable to coronary ischemia. Outcomes data from adult CPA, especially from CPA due to ventricular fibrillation (VF), cannot be applied to infants and children. In the United States an estimated 16,000 children die of unexpected CPA each year; the overall out-of-hospital (OOH) incidence is estimated at 19.7/100,000 children [1]. Pediatric CPA is much less common than adult CPA [2]. Few pediatric CPA outcome studies have been adequately powered, in large part because most studies report on the experience of a single institution, and thus a relatively small number of survivors. The use of various definitions and data elements for risk factors and out- comes in studies also make it difficult to interpret and compare outcome studies. To address the inability to compare data from different studies, international consensus definitions (Pediatric Utstein) were published in the early 1990s for OOH and in-hospital cardiac arrest, respiratory arrest, treatment interventions, and demographic information [3]. Over the last few years, large multi-center studies incorporated these reporting templates resulting in improved outcome documentation. In this article we discuss the * Corresponding author. E-mail address: haqueiu@peds.ufl.edu (I.U. Haque). 0031-3955/08/$ - see front matter. Published by Elsevier Inc. doi:10.1016/j.pcl.2008.04.008 pediatric.theclinics.com Pediatr Clin N Am 55 (2008) 969–987