Although available studies have not demonstrated that antiarrhythmic drugs could increase long-term survival or survival with favorable neurological outcome, some studies have shown that the rate of hospital admission is higher with amiodarone or lidocaine than with placebo. To study the effects of antiarrhythmic drugs during cardiac arrest, a meta-analysis was conducted to assess the efficacy of amiodarone and/or lidocaine.

We searched studies from inception until Jan 21, 2020. The primary endpoint was survival to hospital discharge in cardiac arrest, and the secondary endpoints were survival to hospital admission/24 h and favorable neurological outcome.

A total of 9 studies were included. In head-to-head studies, amiodarone (odds ratio [OR] 2.96, 95% credible interval [CrI] 1.02–8.53) and lidocaine (OR 3.12, 95% CrI 1.08–9.98) had superior effects on survival to hospital admission/24 h compared to the combination of the two drugs. In terms of survival to hospital discharge, amiodarone (OR 1.18, 95% CrI 1.03–1.35) and lidocaine (OR 1.22, 95% CrI 1.06–1.41) were more effective than placebo. Amiodarone (OR 1.20, 95% CrI 1.02–1.41) was significantly better than placebo in favorable neurological outcome. However, there was no significant difference in other pairwise comparisons. The surface under cumulative ranking curve (SUCRA) revealed that lidocaine was the most effective therapy for survival to hospital admission (84.1%) and discharge (88.4%), while amiodarone was associated with a more favorable neurological outcome (88.2%).

Lidocaine had the best effect on both survival to hospital admission and discharge, while amiodarone was associated with a more favorable neurological outcome.

Trial registration: This study is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42020171049.