SUDDEN cardiac death continues to be the leading cause of mortality in the developed world, claiming 400,000 lives annually in the United States alone. The vast majority of these deaths are attributed to ventricular tachycardia/ fibrillation (VT/VF). Currently, electrical defibrillation remains the only effective treatment for this otherwise fatal rhythm. Large-scale clinical trials have demonstrated that for out-of-hospital and intensive care unit cardiac arrests, the sooner defibrillation occurs, the greater the chance of patient survival.
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