Authors Wagner et al. in your journal demonstrated effectiveness of mechanical chest compressions in the coronary catheterization laboratory to facilitate coronary intervention and survival in patients requiring prolonged resuscitation efforts. We dare to comment on this article and advocate to use mechanical chest compressions only as a bridge to extracorporeal membrane oxygenation to completely substitute failed circulation and enable percutaneous coronary intervention or other procedures to treat the cause of cardiac arrest.

2nd Department of Medicine Cardiovascular Medicine 1st Faculty of Medicine Charles University Prague and General University Hospital Prague U Nemocnice 2 Prague 2 128 00 Czech Republic

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Wagner H, Hardig B, Rundgren M, Zughaft D, Harnek J, Götberg M, Olivecrona G. Mechanical chest compressions in the coronary catheterization laboratory to facilitate coronary intervention and survival in patients requiring prolonged resuscitation efforts. Scand J Trauma Resusc Emerg Med. 2016;24(1):4. doi: 10.1186/s13049-016-0198-3. PubMed DOI PMC

Wagner H, Terkelsen CJ, Friberg H, Harnek J, Kern K, Lassen JF, et al. Cardiac arrest in the catheterisation laboratory: a 5-year experience of using mechanical chest compressions to facilitate PCI during prolonged resuscitation efforts. Resuscitation. 2010;81(4):383–387. doi: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2009.11.006. PubMed DOI

Wagner H, Rundgren M, Madsen Hardig B, Kern K, Zughaft D, Harnek J, et al. A structured approach for treatment of prolonged cardiac arrest cases in the coronary cathetrization laboratory using mechanical chest compressions. Int J Cardiovasc Res. 2013;2(4):1–7.

Belohlavek J, Kucera K, Jarkovsky J, Franek O, Pokorna M, Danda J, et al. Hyperinvasive approach to out-of hospital cardiac arrest using mechanical chest compression device, prehospital intraarrest cooling, extracorporeal life support and early invasive assessment compared to standard of care. A randomized parallel groups comparative study proposal. “Prague OHCA study”. J Transl Med. 2012;10:163. doi: 10.1186/1479-5876-10-163. PubMed DOI PMC