Dr. Johnson co-leads national trial to improve recovery after cardiac arrest
Dr. Nick Johnson will co-lead a national clinical trial comparing two commonly used medications to determine which treatment leads to better outcomes for patients who develop shock after cardiac arrest.
The VICTORY (Vasopressor Strategy in Cardiac Arrest to Optimize Recovery) trial, co-led by Johnson and Ari Moskowitz, MD, MPH, a critical care physician at Montefiore Einstein, will compare epinephrine and norepinephrine, two medications commonly used to stabilize patients after cardiac arrest. The trial will enroll 2,310 adults across 17 hospitals in the United States.
More than half a million Americans experience cardiac arrest each year. While medical teams have become better at restarting the heart, many patients who survive cardiac arrest do not survive their hospitalization. Up to 70% of patients who are successfully resuscitated develop post-cardiac arrest shock, which can cause further damage to the brain and other organs.
The study will randomly assign eligible patients to receive either epinephrine or norepinephrine and follow them throughout their hospitalization and for six months after discharge. The primary outcome is survival to hospital discharge. Researchers will also evaluate organ function, quality of life, return to work and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The research team is also working with cardiac arrest survivors, caregivers and people who have lost loved ones to cardiac arrest to help shape the study and identify outcomes that matter most to patients and families.
“Their perspectives have really changed how we, as researchers, were thinking about this,” Johnson said.
The team will also look at whether certain patient characteristics may help predict which treatment works best for an individual patient.
“We’re trying to understand whether there are specific characteristics that might predict how patients respond to one strategy over another so that we can personalize care in the future,” Johnson said.
The VICTORY trial is supported by $11.5 million in funding from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and is expected to continue through 2031.
