"Outside of the hospital market, we see a growing uptake on the addition of carbon monoxide [monitors] in the defibrillator," says Zoll's Hamilton. "It's attractive in the pre-hospital setting, in trying to figure out if a patient may have been exposed to carbon monoxide."

Zoll's E Series is separate technology from its AEDs, but it is used on SCA patients, in addition to others suspected of suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.

New guidelines focus on chest compressions
Every five years since 1974, the AHA revises its guidelines on CPR and resuscitation according to the latest science-based recommendations for treating cardiovascular emergencies, especially SCA.

In 2005, the guidelines advised the AED manufacturers to seek innovative methods to decrease the amount of time chest compressions are withheld for AED operation. This is still part of the new guidelines released in late October, says Kleinman.

As of late, there has been more of a push toward laypeople administering compression-only CPR instead of the conventional CPR, which includes compressions and rescue breaths. Recent studies have indicated that compression-only CPR could lead to better outcomes in adult patients who undergo SCA outside of a hospital.

In fact, a study published in October in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that adult victims of SCA outside of a hospital were more likely to survive to hospital discharge if bystanders administered compression-only CPR.

"Anything that interrupted compressions was detrimental," lead researcher Dr. Ben Bobrow told DOTmed News in October, referring to previous studies.

The study also found that lay bystanders were more likely to administer CPR using the compression-only method than conventional CPR, although the researchers from the University of Arizona did not study the reasons why.

"The [2005] CPR guidelines require the rescuer to use mouth-to-mouth, and a person who notices someone going into sudden cardiac arrest might hesitate," says Dixie Medical's Handley. "With the new guidelines, they're doing away with mouth-to-mouth. It makes people more comfortable. Anyone can put one hand over the other, lock their elbows and press hard at a rapid pace."

Physio-Control's Pollock was confident that the new guidelines would further stress compression-only CPR. But unlike the 2005 guidelines, which forced manufacturers to change their software, he anticipated these changes wouldn't be as big.

"We tried to make our products as configurable as they can be, and we anticipated if there were changes, we [would be] ready to make them," he says.

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