• R L A Smits, S T F Sødergren, H van Schuppen, F Folke, M Ringh, M Jonsson, E Motazedi, I G M van Valkengoed, and H L Tan.
• Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam, Department of Public Health, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
• Resuscitation. 2023 Apr 1; 185: 109721109721.

AimWomen have less favorable resuscitation characteristics than men. We investigated whether the Advanced Life Support Termination of Resuscitation rule (ALS-TOR) performs equally in women and men. Additionally, we studied whether adding or removing criteria from the ALS-TOR improved classification into survivors and non-survivors.MethodsWe analyzed 6,931 female and 14,548 male out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients from Dutch and Swedish registries, and validated in 10,772 female and 21,808 male Danish OHCA patients. Performance measures were calculated for ALS-TOR in relation to 30-day survival. Recursive partitioning analysis was performed with the ALS-TOR criteria, as well as age, comorbidities, and additional resuscitation characteristics (e.g. initial rhythm, OHCA location). Finally, we explored if we could reduce the number of ALS-TOR criteria without loss of prognostic value.ResultsThe ALS-TOR had a specificity and positive predictive value (PPV) of ≥99% in both women and men (e.g. PPV 99.9 in men). Classification by recursive partitioning analysis showed a high sensitivity but a PPV below 99%, thereby exceeding the acceptable miss rate of 1%. A combination of no return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) before transport to the hospital and unwitnessed OHCA resulted in nearly equal specificity and PPV, higher sensitivity, and a lower transport rate to the hospital than the ALS-TOR.ConclusionFor both women and men, the ALS-TOR has high specificity and low miss rate for predicting 30-day OHCA survival. We could not improve the classification with additional characteristics. Employing a simplified version may decrease the number of futile transports to the hospital.Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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