Sternal IO is the Best IO

All our cardiac arrest patients roll in these days with an IO in place - and we are full proponents of rapid, successful access in the uncontrolled field environment.  But, how effective is it really in the CPR situation?

So, this is an animal study that tries to address the theoretical efficacy of intraosseous access versus central venous access.  They use injection of dye tracers into Yorkshire swine for a comparison between intraosseous sternal, intraosseous tibial, and external jugular central venous cannulation.

Unfortunately, this is a good news/bad news study.  The good news - peak concentrations were achieved only slightly more slowly in the arterial circulation following sternal intraosseus injection than the gold standard central venous injection.  And, the peak concentrations were nearly identical.  Bad news, the tibial IO was half the speed and half the arterial peak concentration of the sternal IO.

In theory, this is of relative importance depending on which medication you're using - presumably the speed of administration matters in CPR and peak concentration may matter as well.  Of course, this is limited as 1) pigs and 2) efficacy vs. effectiveness, because they're not measuring clinical outcomes.

But it's interesting to worry about.  Too bad it's hard to do chest compressions with your access point where your hands are supposed to go.  It would be interesting to compare this result to a humeral head IO.

"Pharmacokinetics of Intraosseous and Central Venous Drug Delivery During Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21871857