Complications
Whilst CPR is a last resort intervention, without which a patient without a pulse will certainly die, the physical nature of how CPR is performed does lead to complications that may need to be rectified. Common complications due to CPR include rib fractures, sternal fractures, bleeding in the anterior mediastinum, heart contusion, hemopericardium, upper airway complications, damage to the abdominal viscus - lacerations of the liver and spleen, fat emboli, pulmonary complications - pneumothorax, hemothorax, lung contusions.
The most common injuries sustained from CPR are rib fractures, with literature suggesting an incidence between 13% and 97%, and sternal fractures, with an incidence between 1% to 43%. Whilst these iatrogenic injuries can require further intervention (assuming the patient survives the cardiac arrest), only 0.5% of them are life threatening in their own right.
The type and frequency of injury can be affected by factors such as gender and age. For instance, women have a higher risk of sternal fractures than men, and risk for rib fractures increases significantly with age. Children and infants have a low risk of rib fractures during CPR, with an incidence less than 2%, although when they do occur, they are usually anterior and multiple.
Where CPR is performed in error by a bystander, on a patient who is not in cardiac arrest, only around 2% suffer injury as a result (although 12% experienced discomfort).
Read more about this topic: Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation