The Lazarus phenomenon

Abstract

The Lazarus phenomenon or the unassisted return of spontaneous circulation after cardiac arrest is a grossly underreported phenomenon in medical literature which essentially implies the ‘resurrection’ of an individual after cardiac arrest. Although there have been a handful of such cases reported, the clinical incidence and significance may be underestimated. Because of the presumed infrequency of this condition, there are no studies specifically researching Lazarus phenomenon in scientific literature. This review intends to systematically present current and past knowledge on this rare but definitive phenomenon. Research databases namely Google Scholar, Science Direct, Medline and PubMed were utilized. Only articles which identified cases where the return of spontaneous circulation occurred after cessation of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), and review articles on the entity were included. The mentioned databases were searched using the terms ‘Lazarus phenomenon’, ‘cardiopulmonary resuscitation’ and ‘return of spontaneous circulation’. A literature review was synthesised based on articles meeting the eligibility criteria to better understand the phenomenon of return of spontaneous circulation.