Roseville-based Advanced Circulatory Systems, Inc., is touting the results of a recent clinical trial that found that the company's device provides a better alternative to traditional CPR.

The trial was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health and sponsored by Advanced Circulatory Systems. It found that a “significantly higher percentage of patients” who experienced cardiac arrest outside of a hospital survived after receiving resuscitation with the aid of two devices than those who received traditional CPR, performed only with one's hands.

Both devices-the ResQPump and the ResQPod-are manufactured by Advanced Circulatory Systems.

The ResQPump is a handheld device that is placed on the sternum in the same place where hands would go during traditional CPR. Rescuers pump the device downward to compress the chest, but they then pull up on the handle-which contains a suction cup that decompresses the chest and helps blood return to the heart. The handle of the device also has a gauge and metronome to guide the rate and depth of the rescuer's motions.

The ResQPod is placed over a mask or tube and prevents unnecessary gases from entering the chest during CPR. By selectively restricting airflow, it creates a vacuum in the chest that Advanced Circulatory Systems says helps increase blood flow back to the patient's heart.

“Each year, approximately 300,000 Americans experience out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, and the national average for survival to hospital discharge is dismal-only about 5 percent,” Ralph J. Frascone, associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Minnesota and emergency medical services director at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, said in a statement. “However, in this study, patients who received CPR by rescuers using the device combination had a 53 percent higher survival to hospital discharge rate with favorable neurologic function than those who did not, and a significant survival benefit was still present one year after the initial cardiac arrest event.”

Privately held Advanced Circulatory Systems currently manufactures and sells the ResQPod product. The ResQPump has not yet been approved for sale in the United States, although the company's CardioPump-which is an identical product-is currently sold outside of the United States.