Analysis Endpoints are presented in the dedicated subsection. Patients. The reference study population consists of 368 patients (Evaggelismos Hospital, n=288/368=78.2%) with in-hospital cardiac arrest, who required epinephrine during CPR according to the 2005 Guidelines for Resuscitation (6). During CPR, VSE group patients (n=178) also received vasopressin and methylprednisolone and controls (n=190) the respective saline placebos. At 4 hours after CPR, there were 211 surviving patients (VSE group, n=115), who were evaluated for postresuscitation shock (3,4). One hundred three VSE group patients were then assigned to stress-dose hydrocortisone and 88 controls to saline placebo. Of the 103 VSE group patients, 102 received stress-dose hydrocortisone, whereas 1 did not because of study pharmacist error; of the 88 control group patients, 73 actually received saline placebo, whereas 15 received open-label stress-dose hydrocortisone by protocol violation and according to the orders of their attending physicians (4).