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Resuscitation
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Stratifying comatose postanoxic patients for somatosensory evoked potentials using routine EEG.
Multimodal neurological prognostication is recommended for comatose patients after cardiac arrest. The absence of cortical N20-potentials in a somatosensory evoked potential (SSEP) examination reliably predicts poor outcome, but presence of N20-potentials have limited prognostic value. A benign routine electroencephalogram (EEG) may identify patients with a favourable prognosis who are likely to have present N20-potentials. ⋯ All patients with a benign EEG had present N20-potentials, suggesting that SSEP may be omitted in these patients to save resources. SSEP is useful in patients with a malignant or highly malignant EEG since these patterns are associated with both present and absent N20-potentials.