Among patients treated with therapeutic hypothermia after a cardiac arrest,smokers had better outcomes than nonsmokers, a single-center study showed.
Half of smokers survived to hospital discharge with a good neurological outcome compared with only 28% of nonsmokers (P=0.003), according to Jeremy Pollock, MD, of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and colleagues.
The difference remained significant after adjustment for numerous potential confounders, including comorbidities, they reported online in Resuscitation.
"Despite the findings of our study, we do not want the public to take from this that they should go out and start smoking to protect them from a future cardiac arrest," Pollock said.
"We hope," he said, "this will spur on further thought and discussion in regards to the etiology of the smoker's paradox," a previously observed phenomenon in which smokers are more likely to have an acute coronary syndrome, but are less likely to die from an acute myocardial infarction (MI).
The current study is the first to examine the smoker's paradox in the setting of cardiac arrest, where reperfusion injury is similar to that seen in acute MI.
SOURCE: Med Page Today