ROSC (return of spontaneous circulation)
ROSC stands for return of spontaneous circulation: after a cardiac arrest, the person’s own circulation starts again.
How to read it
North Carolina’s approved abbreviations for EMS list ROSC as “Return of Spontaneous Circulation”. It appears in the records of a resuscitation attempt, and it can mean two different things: a brief return of circulation or a sustained one.
Also searched as: rosc, rosc meaning, rosc medical abbreviation.
These pages explain what medical abbreviations and symbols stand for. They are not medical advice and give no doses: a pharmacist or prescriber can explain what any label means for you.
Any ROSC and sustained ROSC
The NEMSIS data dictionary for EMS records (version 3.5.1) has a field, “Any Return of Spontaneous Circulation”, filled in when a patient in cardiac arrest is taken to a hospital. It defines any ROSC as a brief restoration of spontaneous circulation, of roughly more than 30 seconds, showing more than an occasional gasp, an occasional fleeting pulse or an arterial waveform. Research on cardiac arrest often counts sustained ROSC instead. A 2020 study in Emergency Medicine International defined it, following the Utstein statement, as signs of circulation persisting with no chest compressions needed for 20 consecutive minutes.
More medical chart abbreviations
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Sources
- Approved Medical Abbreviations, Appendix G, revised 15 October 2023, North Carolina College of Emergency Physicians, via the North Carolina Office of EMS, R
- eArrest.12: Any Return of Spontaneous Circulation (NEMSIS Data Dictionary, version 3.5.1), NEMSIS Technical Assistance Center, Definition and usage
- The Association of Extreme Tachycardia and Sustained Return of Spontaneous Circulation after Nontraumatic Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest, Lee J-T, et al., Emergency Medicine International, 2020, Emergency Medicine International, via PubMed Central, 2.4 Outcomes
Last reviewed September 30, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research