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Mouth-to-mouth on a dummy
Mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing may not be necessary and could lower the chances of survival when someone collapses suddenly, researchers have found.
They add chest compression alone is enough, in findings that support evidence that the simpler approach works best during CPR.
"Chest compression alone is at least as good, at least as beneficial," Dr. Thomas Rea, chief author of one of the studies, said.
The findings come at a time when less emphasis is being placed on mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing, which people often regard as unsanitary anyway, and more emphasis is focusing on properly pressing on the chest at a rate of 100 times a minute.
People used to be told to give two breaths for every 15 chest compressions. That formula changed in 2005 to two breaths for every 30 compressions.
In the two studies, researchers worked with emergency telephone operators in Sweden, London and the US state of Washington, who randomly instructed more than 3,000 emergency callers who witnessed a collapse to perform CPR with or without the breathing.
Most of the victims died, but when bystanders did chest compressions alone it slightly increased a patient's chance of leaving the hospital without brain damage.
11.5% escaped brain damage if rescue breathing was done while 14.4% escaped neurological problems with chest compressions alone.
The Swedish team stressed that the findings do not apply to cardiac arrest caused by trauma, intoxication or respiratory failure, or to children under the age of 8.
However, Dr. Myron Weisfeldt of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore said CPR courses should continue to teach rescue breathing.
"It is important in cases of cardiac arrest due to obvious respiratory failure, which include most cardiac arrests in children and in some adults," he said.
