the actual chain of survival rate is about 12% for cardiac arrests that occur outside hospitals and between 24% and 40% for those that happen in the hospital, according to the report published online in the Emergency Medicine Journal
Bystander-initiated CPR may increase those odds to 10%. Survival after CPR for in-hospital cardiac arrest is slightly better, but still only about 17%. The numbers get even worse with age. A study in Sweden found that survival after out-of-hospital CPR dropped from 6.7% for patients in their 70s to just 2.4% for those over 90. Chronic illness matters too. One study found that less than 2% of patients with cancer or heart, lung, or liver disease were resuscitated with CPR and survived for six months.
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