Intraosseous versus intravenous vascular access during cardiopulmonary resuscitation for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies

INTRODUCTION: This study is aimed to investigate the association of intraosseous (IO) versus intravenous (IV) route during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) with outcomes after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). METHODS: We systematically searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library and Web of Science from the database inception through April 2020. Our search strings included designed keywords for two concepts, i.e. vascular access and cardiac arrest. There were no limitations implemented in the search strategy. We selected studies comparing IO versus IV access in neurological or survival outcomes after OHCA. Favourable neurological outcome at hospital discharge was pre-specified as the primary outcome. We pooled the effect estimates in random-effects models and quantified the heterogeneity by the I(2) statistics. Time to intervention, defined as time interval from call for emergency medical services to establishing vascular access or administering medications, was hypothesized to be a potential outcome moderator and examined in subgroup analysis with meta-regression. RESULTS: Nine retrospective observational studies involving 111,746 adult OHCA patients were included. Most studies were rated as high quality according to Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. The pooled results demonstrated no significant association between types of vascular access and the primary outcome (odds ratio [OR], 0.60; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.27–1.33; I(2), 95%). In subgroup analysis, time to intervention was noted to be positively associated with the pooled OR of achieving the primary outcome (OR: 3.95, 95% CI, 1.42–11.02, p: 0.02). That is, when the studies not accounting for the variable of “time to intervention” in the statistical analysis were pooled together, the meta-analytic results between IO access and favourable outcomes would be biased toward inverse association. No obvious publication bias was detected by the funnel plot. CONCLUSIONS: The meta-analysis revealed no significant association between types of vascular access and neurological outcomes at hospital discharge among OHCA patients. Time to intervention was identified to be an important outcome moderator in this meta-analysis of observation studies. These results call for the need for future clinical trials to investigate the unbiased effect of IO use on OHCA CPR. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13049-021-00858-6.