NEW YORK, Mar 07 (Reuters Health) - Instruments used to jump-start a person's heart after a cardiac arrest are not only becoming more efficient at doing the job but are now more widely used by the general public, researchers report.

Automated external defibrillators (AED) are portable devices that automatically analyze heart rhythms and, if necessary, instruct the user to deliver an electric shock to normalize the rhythm. AEDs have been used on airplanes and in casinos for several years. And they have been used successfully, according to a report published in the March issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Lead author Dr. John P. Marenco of the New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, and colleagues conducted a comprehensive review of previously published articles on AEDs. Based on their analysis, the researchers contend that "AED represents a major advance in the effort to achieve early defibrillation and further improve survival following out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest."

According to Marenco's team, "The AED represents an efficient method of delivering defibrillation to persons experiencing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and its use by both traditional and nontraditional first responders appears to be safe and effective."

Just how far the use of AEDs will spread--to shopping malls or movie theaters, for example--remains to be seen. But the authors note that "initial studies of public access to defibrillation offer hope that further improvements in survival after sudden cardiac death can be achieved."

In a prepared statement, Dr. Rose Marie Robertson, president of the American Heart Association, said, "Defibrillation is the only effective treatment for most sudden cardiac arrests and the use of AEDs by trained personnel has reduced time to defibrillation--a critical point in increasing the chances of survival (of) someone in cardiac arrest."

She added, "We need to continue to gather more information about the effect of public access to defibrillation programs on victims of sudden cardiac arrest, including survival rates through hospital discharge, post-arrest quality of life, and the costs of conducting such programs."

The American Heart Association actively promotes the increased availability of AEDs as part of its Operation Heartbeat program, which seeks to increase access to the devices in public locations such as airports. According to the American Heart Association, the sudden cardiac arrest survival rate in the US is about 5%.

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