A Comparison of Vasopressin and Epinephrine for Out-of-Hospital Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

Vasopressin is an alternative to epinephrine for vasopressor therapy during cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but clinical experience with this treatment has been limited.

We randomly assigned adults who had had an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest to receive two injections of either 40 IU of vasopressin or 1 mg of epinephrine, followed by additional treatment with epinephrine if needed. The primary end point was survival to hospital admission, and the secondary end point was survival to hospital discharge.