Resuscitation
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Early, accurate outcome prediction after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is critical for clinical decision-making and resource allocation. We sought to validate the revised post-Cardiac Arrest Syndrome for Therapeutic hypothermia (rCAST) score in a United States cohort and compare its prognostic performance to the Pittsburgh Cardiac Arrest Category (PCAC) and Full Outline of UnResponsiveness (FOUR) scores. ⋯ The rCAST score can reliably predict poor outcome in a United States cohort of OHCA patients regardless of TTM status and outperforms the PCAC score.
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Withdrawal of life-sustaining therapies for perceived poor neurological prognosis is the most common cause of death for patients hospitalized after resuscitation from cardiac arrest. Accurate neuroprognostication is challenging and high stakes, so guidelines recommend multimodality testing. We quantified the frequency and timing with which guideline recommended diagnostics were acquired prior to in-hospital death after cardiac arrest. ⋯ In this retrospective cohort, we found few patients hospitalized after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest underwent guideline-recommended prognostic testing. If validated in prospective cohorts with more granular clinical information, better guideline adherence and more frequent use of multimodality neuroprognostication offer an opportunity to improve quality of post-arrest care.
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Deciding on "termination of resuscitation" (TOR) is a dilemma for any physician facing cardiac arrest. Due to the lack of evidence-based criteria and scarcity of the existing guidelines, crucial arbitration to interrupt resuscitation remains at the practitioner's discretion. ⋯ We demonstrate the existence of individual physician biases in their decision about TOR. The impact of this bias is greater than that of a no-flow duration lasting ten to twenty minutes. Our results plead in favor developing tools and guidelines to guide physicians in their decision.
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To assess survival duration and frequency of delayed neurologic improvement in patients with poor neurologic status at discharge from emergency hospitals after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). ⋯ Survival probability in patients with CPC 3 or 4 was 50% at 1-year and 20% at 3-year. Neurologic improvements were observed in 3.6% patients, higher in CPC 3 than in CPC 4 patients. During the first 6 months after OHCA, the neurologic status may improve in patients with CPC 3 or 4.
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A minority of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients have an acutely occluded coronary artery without manifesting ST-segment elevation on their post-resuscitation ECG. Identifying such patients is an issue to providing timely reperfusion therapy. We aimed to evaluate the usefulness of the initial post-resuscitation electrocardiogram in out-of-hospital-cardiac-arrest patients for selection to perform early coronary angiography. ⋯ Electrocardiogram findings cannot exclude or identify the presence of an acutely occluded coronary in out-of-hospital-cardiac-arrest patients without ST-segment elevation. An acutely occluded coronary may be present regardless of normal electrocardiogram findings.