BHS this week signed up to the international TAME Cardiac Arrest Trial, which will determine whether increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the blood to above normal levels during the first 24 hours on a breathing machine in ICU improves brain recovery six months after the event compared to current treatment.

They will be among 1700 patients assessed during the trial, which will be conducted at 70 hospitals in 17 countries, including about 25 Australian sites.

TAME Cardiac Arrest Trial leader Dr Glenn Eastwood, intensive care research manager at the Austin Hospital and Monash University Australia-New Zealand Intensive Care Research Centre senior research fellow, said there was evidence that a slightly higher than normal increase in CO2 in the brain, about 20 per cent higher than normal, would increase blood flow and oxygen to the brain.

Even after the heart is restarted, poor blood flow to the brain continues and can cause more brain injury. Slighter higher CO2 levels have been shown to have anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and anti-convulsive effects in the brain.

"This will be a multi-centre study looking at the care of patients who have suffered an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest when they are admitted to ICU ... to help patients get back to the normal activities of living after they are out of hospital," Dr Eastwood said.

"By harnessing the normal physiological response to slightly higher carbon dioxide levels we should be able to increase blood flow and oxygen to brain with the aim of improving the neurological outcome for patients."

About half of people who make it to hospital after a cardiac arrest do not survive, but of those who do many have ongoing disabilities including memory loss, speech impairment, inability to return to work and problems socialising.

"This has a devastating impact for the person, their family and society," Dr Eastwood said. "There's a ripple effect on to the family and friendships because families have to adjust to mum, dad, husband or wife not being the person they were a couple of days before.

"If you do survive we want you to be in the best condition."

Everyone who has an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and is admitted to Ballarat's ICU will be screened for eligibility for the trial, which will be led locally by intensive care director Dr Angus Richardson. Only patients who have a so-called "primary cardiac arrest", not one related to asphyxia, drowning, anaphylaxis, poisoning, drug use or other external factors, will be part of the trial.

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Dr Eastwood said one of the most exciting aspects of the trial was the fact the intervention cost nothing extra to apply.

"When a patient is on a ventilator and unconscious we can manage their respiratory rate. When you decrease the respiratory rate you retain carbon dioxide in the body and that's how carbon dioxide levels go up. If you then make someone breathe faster, the level goes down. It's a cost-free easy to apply intervention."

Dr Eastwood said it would take up to 2.5 years to enrol 1700 patients in the study across the globe. Patients will then be followed up six months after their cardiac arrest to assess their function and quality of life.

"Ballarat was a key sign-up because we had no sites in this part of Victoria," he said. "We have Melbourne, Geelong, Northern, Western, St Vincent's, Austin and Alfred hospitals all taking part.

"This is a super thing for Ballarat because they're increasing their trial participation in intensive care and this is going to be a very useful study to build relationships, and to build and maintain a profile maintain in the ICU research community.

"You don't have to be major metropolitan hospital to do this type of stuff. They see these patients, care for them and want the best."

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