American Heart Association Revises Guidelines for Hospital Resuscitation.

Business Editors/Health and Medical Writers

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IRVINE, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--Aug. 23, 2000

Cardiac Science's Unique Bedside Defibrillator Allows Hospitals to

Meet the Challenge

Cardiac Science Inc. (OTC: DFIB), the developer of Powerheart(R), the only hospital monitor that provides life-saving defibrillation within seconds and without the aid of hospital staff, Wednesday announced that on Aug. 15, the American Heart Association revised CPR and emergency cardiac care guidelines to include a new global standard for the treatment of patients who suffer hospital cardiac arrests.

The AHA guidelines place major emphasis on the need for immediate defibrillation, and for the first time establish specific response time goals for resuscitation. Hospitals have been tasked to deliver a defibrillation shock within three minutes of the cardiac arrest. While the urgency of response is known to be a critical factor in saving lives, hospital studies have documented delays of five minutes or more before a patient is defibrillated. For each minute that passes,, a patient's chance of survival declines 10 percent.

"The American Heart Association is asking hospitals to fundamentally change the way we think about managing our patients at risk for sudden cardiac death," said Dr. Thomas Mattioni, director of Electrophysiology, Arizona Heart Institute and Hospital. "Sudden cardiac arrest is unique in two ways: it is the only condition that, once contracted, will result in death within minutes if untreated, yet it is the single medical condition we can cure in an instant when patients receive an immediate defibrillation shock. Clearly, hospitals that employ Powerheart's fully-automatic capability will have no trouble achieving the AHA's recommended goal for defibrillation within three minutes."

Cardiac Science's Powerheart is pre-attached to hospital cardiac patients. It continuously monitors and instantly detects life-threatening heart rhythms and automatically delivers defibrillation shocks within seconds and without human intervention to re-establish the heart's normal rhythm.

Sudden Cardiac Arrest and the Urgency of Response

Sudden cardiac arrest caused by abnormal heart rhythms results in a quivering heart muscle unable to pump blood through the body. Once blood stops circulating, oxygen loss begins to injure the brain and heart, and a person quickly loses consciousness and will die within minutes if not defibrillated. External defibrillation provides a brief, effective shock through the person's chest to the heart, restoring the heart's normal rhythm.

The ability to defibrillate within seconds saves lives and minimizes brain damage and the diminished quality of life that often occurs when defibrillation is withheld for even a few minutes. Defibrillation within seconds may reduce patient complications and shorten hospital stays.

In-Hospital Resuscitation

The American Heart Journal (AM Heart J 137(1): 39-48, 1999) recently published a report of 113 clinical studies that included 26,095 patients. It revealed that patients who suffered an in-hospital cardiac arrest had a meager survival rate of 15.2 percent. Despite continuous monitoring and ready access to trained personnel and equipment, patients in critical care units who suffer cardiac arrests do not have a better chance of surviving than those who suffer an arrest outside of hospitals.

AHA's new three-minute target represents a significant advance for cardiac care, but many hospitals may struggle to achieve this goal. The problem is not the lack of skilled personnel, but the many steps involved in the "code blue" process. First, a bedside monitor must detect and report the arrhythmia, sending an alarm to a central nursing station.

Second, someone at the station must recognize that alarm -- a process that depends on the availability and attentiveness of personnel in the vicinity. Third, after alarm recognition, someone must respond, stop what they are doing and attend to the patient. Fourth, a requisite bedside check to assess the patient's condition determines whether or not to call the code. If the patient has in fact arrested, additional steps are initiated.

One nurse might administer CPR while another locates and transports the "crash cart" that houses the manual defibrillator and the necessary supplies and medications. When the cart arrives, the defibrillator electrodes are placed on the patient's chest, the defibrillator is charged up, a final assessment of the patient is done to confirm the need for defibrillation, and a shock is manually delivered. Even when all goes well in this heightened and potentially chaotic environment, precious time passes much too quickly, and delays of five, six, seven minutes or longer are not at all uncommon.

In dramatic contrast to the current standard of care, the Powerheart can deliver a life-saving defibrillation shock automatically within a matter of seconds and without the aid of hospital staff.

About Cardiac Science

Cardiac Science develops and markets life-saving external cardiac defibrillator devices and proprietary software that monitor and automatically treat cardiac arrest patients. RHYTHMx ECD(TM) tachyarrhythmia detection and defibrillation software, the company's core proprietary technology platform, has multiple applications including use in external defibrillators, wearable defibrillators and in the standard patient monitors widely used in hospitals throughout the world.

Powerheart, Cardiac Science's first commercial product, began shipping this year and is currently used in hospitals worldwide. Results from a multi-center study, recently published in Pacing And Clinical Electrophysiology (PACE Vol. 22; 11/1999; p.1648-1655), a peer reviewed cardiology journal, concludes the Powerheart potentially represents a means to improve both mortality and morbidity associated with in-hospital cardiac arrest.

Cardiac Science's global sales network consists of prominent distributors in 41 countries encompassing Asia, the Middle East, Europe, South America and North America. The company has an exclusive agreement with Medtronic Physio-Control, a division of Medtronic Inc., the worldwide market leader in external defibrillator products, to distribute the Powerheart in the United States, Canada, and nine European countries.

In June 2000, Cardiac Science licensed its proprietary technology to Medtronic Physio-Control, the world's largest manufacturer of external defibrillators, for integration into Medtronic Physio-Control's LIFEPAK(R) products for the hospital market.

For more information on Cardiac Science, visit the company's Internet site at www.cardiacscience.com.

For more information about the American Heart Association and Emergency Cardiovascular Care, visit www.cpr-ecc.americanheart.org.

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: The Powerheart's safety and efficacy, its ability to increase survival rates for in-hospital cardiac arrest victims, its ability to improve patient-care and lessen patient debilitation; and the company's ability to successfully integrate its technology into Medtronic Physio-Control's LIFEPAK products. Cardiac Science cautions that these statements are qualified by various known and unknown factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected by the forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to: future economic, regulatory, and market conditions; future business decisions; market and clinical users' acceptance of new and existing products; impact of competitive products and pricing; and changing market conditions. Information on these and other factors are detailed in the company's Form 10-K for the year ending Dec. 31, 1999 and other documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Powerheart and RHYTHMx ECD are trademarks of Cardiac Science Inc. LIFEPAK is a trademark of Medtronic Physio-Control.