Mechanical circulatory device utilization in cardiac arrest: Racial and gender disparities and impact on mortality

The objectives of this retrospective study include identifying the utilization trend of mechanical circulatory devices (MCD) such as Intra-Aortic Balloon Pump (IABP), Impella and Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) in admissions with cardiac arrest, determining whether racial or gender disparities exist in their usage, and discerning if their use is associated with a reduction in mortality. By leveraging the National Inpatient Sample, we identified 229,180 weighted adult cardiac arrest admissions between October 1, 2015 and December 31, 2018. MCD were used in 6005 admissions (2.6%). IABP had the highest utilization, representing 77.8% of all MCDs, followed by Impella at 24.8%. The utilization of IABP decreased from 90.6% to 71.6%, while the use of Impella increased from 13.5% to 29.8% in this study period; both trends were statistically significant. MCD use was found to be lower in women compared to men (1.4% vs 3.6, P