• Christophe Adrie, Hakim Haouache, Mohamed Saleh, Nathalie Memain, Ivan Laurent, Marie Thuong, Loic Darques, Patrice Guerrini, and Mehran Monchi.
• Intensive Care Unit, Delafontaine Hospital, 2 rue du Dr Delafontaine, Saint Denis, France. christophe.adrie@wanadoo.fr
• Intensive Care Med. 2008 Jan 1; 34 (1): 132-7.

ObjectiveTo identify predictors of brain death after successful resuscitation of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), with the goal of improving the detection of brain death, and to evaluate outcomes of solid organs harvested from these patients.Design And SettingProspective observational cohort study in a medical and surgical unit of a nonuniversity hospital.PatientsPatients with successfully resuscitated OHCA were prospectively included in a database over a 7-year period. We looked for early predictors of brain death and compared outcomes of organ transplants from these patients to those from patients with brain death due to head injury or stroke.ResultsOver the 7-year period 246 patients were included. No early predictors of brain death were found. Of the 40 patients (16%) who met criteria for brain death, after a median ICU stay of 2.5 days (IQR 2.0-4.2), 19 donated 52 solid organs (29 kidneys, 14 livers, 7 hearts, and 2 lungs). Outcomes of kidneys and livers did not differ between donors with and without resuscitated cardiac arrest.ConclusionsBrain death may occur in about one-sixth of patients after successfully resuscitated OHCA, creating opportunities for organ donation.

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