Resuscitation
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Predicting recovery in comatose post-cardiac arrest patients requires multiple modalities of prognostic assessment. In isolation, absent N20 cortical responses in somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs) are a specific predictor of poor outcome. It is unknown whether SSEP results, when assessed in the context of prior knowledge (demographic and clinical information), change the pretest predicted probability of recovery. ⋯ Adding the N20 SSEP response results to prior knowledge changed the predicted probability of WLST and survival to discharge in comatose post-arrest patients.
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Despite significant advances in resuscitation efforts, there are some patients who remain in ventricular fibrillation (VF) after multiple shocks during out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Double sequential external defibrillation (DSED) has been proposed as a treatment option for patients in refractory VF. ⋯ Our observational findings suggest that while overall VF termination and ROSC are similar between standard defibrillation and DSED, earlier DSED may be associated with improved rates of VF termination and ROSC compared to standard defibrillation for refractory VF. A randomized controlled trial is required to assess the impact of early application of DSED on patient-important outcomes.
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Observational Study
The ventricular fibrillation waveform in relation to shock success in early vs. late phases of out-of-hospital resuscitation.
The amplitude spectrum area (AMSA) of the ventricular fibrillation (VF) waveform predicts shock success and clinical outcome after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Recently, also AMSA-changes demonstrated prognostic value. Until now, most studies focused on early shocks, while many patients require prolonged resuscitations. We studied AMSA and its changes in relation to shock success, for both the early and later phase of resuscitation. ⋯ AMSA relates to shock success during the entire resuscitation, but associations were most apparent for early shocks. AMSA-changes were also associated with shock success, but only in the early phase of resuscitation. In an era of smart defibrillators, absolute AMSA and relative changes hold promise for studies on early guidance of resuscitation, whereas additional studies are warranted to further characterize shock prediction in the later phase.
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Neurological impairment after resuscitated cardiac arrest (CA) remains a significant unmet medical need. Brain ischemia associated with CA and subsequent reperfusion is evident as two fundamentally different types of damage on neuropathological examination: frank necrosis (involving all cell types) and selective eosinophilic neuronal death (SEND). These types of damage are not only dissimilar in micromorphology, but also differently detectable with clinical brain imaging methods. In a previous study, SEND was reported in most patients surviving the initial CA. This study was undertaken to further characterize and map SEND in an expanded dataset. ⋯ There are regional differences in SEND distribution. Cases free of SEND in the hippocampus or basal ganglia are unlikely to have significant SEND in other regions, suggesting that these regions could be used as "sentinel sites" for global SEND in future studies.