Australia to Establish World’s Largest Registry of Cardiac Arrest Deaths

Medical staff practice cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) emergency procedures on a mannequin in Mulhouse, eastern France, on June 26, 2023. Sebastien Bozo/AFP via Getty Images

Australian health scientists will establish the world’s largest registry of sudden cardiac arrest deaths as they seek to unveil the mysteries behind the cardiovascular condition.

The project, carried out by the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute with support from the Heart Foundation, will combine and examine data from two large cardiac arrest databases to create a new super-registry called CODEX-SD.

According to the Heart Foundation, the new registry, which links ambulance and forensic data, will serve as a one-stop archive for Australia’s data on cardiac arrests, allowing researchers to examine rare conditions, identify trends, and better understand the cardiac experiences of under-represented populations.

By unravelling the genetic mysteries behind cardiac arrests, the researchers hope to figure out what causes cardiac arrests and how to stop them.

A cardiac arrest is classified as a medical emergency and occurs when a person’s heart suddenly stops pumping, preventing blood from flowing to the brain and other vital organs.

It can strike anywhere and anytime and often results in death if not appropriately intervened.

The Heart Foundation said 25,000 Australians experienced out-of-hospital cardiac arrests each year, and that doctors could not explain what caused the medical condition in 30 to 40 percent of the cases.

“There’s very few other conditions like that, where at the end of extensive investigations, we go back to the family and say there’s no clear reason why this tragic event has happened,” lead researcher Elizabeth Paratz said.

“This lack of closure makes it incredibly difficult for families, but also with a lack of knowing who else might be at risk in the family adds another layer of distress.

“Ninety percent of people who suffer a sudden cardiac arrest die, so if we can make inroads on that statistic–and we need to do so–one benefit, and the most important one, is that we have a better chance of keeping families together.”

Surge in Cardiac Arrest Cases in Victoria

The Heart Foundation’s announcement comes following a surge in cardiac arrest cases in the state of Victoria.

According to the Victorian Ambulance Cardiac Arrest Registry (VACAR) Annual Report (pdf), there were 7,361 out-of-hospital cardiac arrest incidents in the state in the 2021-2022 financial year, the highest figure ever recorded in history, up 5.8 percent from the previous year.

The rate of cardiac arrest also rose significantly from around 100 per 100,000 population in 2020-2021, to 136 per 100,000 in 2021-2022.

The increase has raised alarms because the survival rate after a cardiac arrest is typically low.

Among the patients, only 360 were discharged alive from hospitals in 2021-2022, representing a survival rate of 4.89 percent, which is lower than the 2020-2021 rate of 5.7 percent.

Around 79 percent of the incidents occurred at home, with 65 percent of the patients being male.

An ambulance is parked in front of the Emergency and Trauma service at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, on July 21, 2022 . Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

Potential Link Between COVID-19 Vaccines and Cardiac Arrests

In 2022, a study by Dr. Eli Jaffe, a leading figure in emergency medicine and healthcare management in Israel, revealed that from January to May 2021, there was a surge of over 25 percent in emergency calls related to cardiac arrest and acute coronary syndrome (a severe form of coronary heart disease) among individuals aged 16 to 39 in the country, compared to the same period in 2019 and 2020.

The researchers found that the increase in emergency calls related to cardiac issues was associated with COVID-19 vaccine administration, but unrelated to COVID-19 infection, raising concerns about undetected severe cardiovascular side effects induced by vaccines.

They also highlighted the established causal relationship between vaccines and myocarditis, a common cause of sudden cardiac arrest in young people.

Another study published in May 2023 indicated that myocarditis (with an overall incidence rate of around 1.62 percent) was identified as the most common cardiac event following COVID-19 vaccination.

According to the research, cases of myocarditis are more prevalent in males and after the administration of the second dose.

In addition, mRNA and vector-based vaccines were associated with a higher incidence of vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia, and pulmonary embolism compared to inactivated vaccines.

Ellen Wan contributed to this article.