Also known in ECG terms as a flatline, asystole (pronounced ay-SIS-tuh-lee) is the absence of any discernible activity in the heart. While asystole may be considered an arrhythmia, this arrhythmia is characterized by a complete lack of rhythm, patterned or otherwise. During asystole there is no blood being pumped through the body’s organs and no electrical or mechanical activity occuring in the heart..
If a person remains in a state of asystole for 15 minutes or more, they are most likely brain dead, and in a study of 1,635 asystolic patients, only 10% survived long enough to be admitted to the hospital and only 2% survived long enough to be discharged from the hospital.[1] Asystole is more often used as a confirmation of death than as an arrhythmia to be treated.
