Development and Evaluation of a New Chest Compression Technique for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation in Infants

We designed the newly developed flexed two-finger chest compression technique for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in infants to increase the quality of chest compression by considering the advantages and disadvantages of the two-thumb encircling hand technique and conventional two-finger technique. The aim of the study is to compare the performance of the flexed two-finger technique and the currently used two-thumb technique or two-finger technique for infant CPR. A total of 42 doctors conducted 2-min single-rescuer CPR on a cardiac arrest infant model using the two-thumb technique followed, in a random order, by the two-finger technique and the flexed two-finger technique. Although the ratio of the adequate compression depth was highest in the two-thumb technique, followed by the flexed two-finger technique and two-finger technique (100% [98–100] vs. 99% [80–100] vs. 76% [42–95], respectively, P < 0.001), the hand-off time of the two-thumb technique was significantly longer than in the two-finger technique and flexed two-finger technique (31 s [28–35] vs. 29 s [27–32] vs. 29 s [26–32], respectively, P < 0.001). The number of total chest compressions of the two-thumb technique was significantly lower than in the two-finger technique and flexed two-finger technique (150 [148–159] vs. 159 [149–173] vs. 162 [150–172], respectively, P < 0.001). The newly developed chest compression technique could provide adequate compression depth without increasing the hand-off time during single-rescuer infant CPR.