Is there still a place for vasopressors in the treatment of cardiac arrest?

Table 1 Summary of the characteristics of the clinical trials that have compared vasopressin with epinephrine in cardiac arrest

Author, year [ref]	Setting	Number of enrolled patients	Intervention	Mean time to first vasopressin bolus, min
Lindner, 1997 [26]	OHCA	40	Vasopressin 40 IU followed by epinephrine	13.9
Stiell, 2001 [27]	IHCA	200	Vasopressin 40 IU followed by epinephrine	6.7
Wenzel, 2004 [29]	OHCA	1186	Vasopressin 40 IU for up to 2 cycles, followed by epinephrine	17.5
Gueugniaud, 2008 [30]	OHCA	2894	Vasopressin 40 IU plus epinephrine for up to 2 cycles, followed by epinephrine	21.4
Mentzelopoulos, 2009 [31]	IHCA	100	Vasopressin 20 IU plus epinephrine for up to 5 cycles, plus methylprednisolone 40 mg (once only)	< 5

Treatment in the control group was epinephrine in all studies. IHCA, in-hospital cardiac arrest; IU, International Units; OHCA, out of-hospital cardiac arrest.

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