• Jonathan Tam, Christopher Soufleris, Cecelia Ratay, Adam Frisch, Jonathan Elmer, Nicholas Case, Katharyn L Flickinger, Clifton W Callaway, Patrick J Coppler, and University of Pittsburgh Post-Cardiac Arrest Service.
• Department of Critical Care Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
• Resuscitation. 2023 Aug 1; 189: 109898109898.

AimDetermine the frequency with which computed tomography (CT) after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) identifies clinically important findings.MethodsWe included non-traumatic OHCA patients treated at a single center from February 2019 to February 2021. Clinical practice was to obtain CT head in comatose patients. Additionally, CT of the cervical spine, chest, abdomen, and pelvis were obtained if clinically indicated. We identified CT imaging obtained within 24 hours of emergency department (ED) arrival and summarized radiology findings. We used descriptive statistics to summarize population characteristics and imaging results, report their frequencies and, post hoc, compared time from ED arrival to catheterization between patients who did and did not undergo CT.ResultsWe included 597 subjects, of which 491 (82.2%) had a CT obtained. Time to CT was 4.1 hours [2.8-5.7]. Most (n = 480, 80.4%) underwent CT head, of which 36 (7.5%) had intracranial hemorrhage and 161 (33.5%) had cerebral edema. Fewer subjects (230, 38.5%) underwent a cervical spine CT, and 4 (1.7%) had acute vertebral fractures. Most subjects (410, 68.7%) underwent a chest CT, and abdomen and pelvis CT (363, 60.8%). Chest CT abnormalities included rib or sternal fractures (227, 55.4%), pneumothorax (27, 6.6%), aspiration or pneumonia (309, 75.4%), mediastinal hematoma (18, 4.4%) and pulmonary embolism (6, 3.7%). Significant abdomen and pelvis findings were bowel ischemia (24, 6.6%) and solid organ laceration (7, 1.9%). Most subjects that had CT imaging deferred were awake and had shorter time to catheterization.ConclusionsCT identifies clinically important pathology after OHCA.Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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