Prognostic value of reduced discrimination and oedema on cerebral computed tomography in a daily clinical cohort of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients.
Assessment of prognosis after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is challenging. Cerebral computed tomography (cCT) scans are widely available, but the use in prognostication of comatose OHCA-patients is unclear. We evaluated the prognostic value of cCT in a clinical cohort of OHCA-patients.
A total of 1120 consecutive OHCA-patients with cardiac aetiology and successful or on-going resuscitation at hospital arrival were included (2002-2011). Utstein-criteria for registration of pre-hospital data and review of patient-charts for post-resuscitation care including cCT results were used. The primary endpoint was 30-day mortality analysed by log-rank and multivariate Cox-regression analyses.
A cCT scan was performed in 341(30%) of the clinical OHCA-cohort, and an early CT (