Search

Objective: Ischemia and reperfusion injury (IRI) in cardiac arrest patients after return to spontaneous circulation causes dysfunctions in multiple organs. Kidney injury is generally transient but in some patients persists and contributes both to mortality and increased resource utilisation. Ongoing shock may compound renal injury from IRI, resulting in persistent dysfunction. We tested whether cardiac dysfunction was associated with the development of persistent acute kidney injury (PAKI) in the first 72 h after cardiac arrest., Methods: We performed an observational retrospective study from January 2013 to April 2017. We included consecutive patients treated after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest at a single academic medical center with renal function measured and immediately and for 48 h post arrest. We also recorded each patient's pre arrest baseline creatinine, demographic and clinical characteristics. Our primary outcome of interest was PAKI, defined as acute kidney injury (AKI) on at least 2 measurements 24 h apart. We compared demographics and outcomes between patients with PAKI and those without, and used logistic regression to identify independent predictors of PAKI., Results: Of 98 consecutive patients, we excluded 24 for missing data. AKI was present in 75% of subjects on arrival. PAKI developed in 35% of patients. PAKI patients had a longer hospital length of stay (median 21 vs 11 days) and lower hospital survival (47% vs 71%). Serum lactate levels, dosage of adrenaline during resuscitation and days of dobutamine infusion strongly predicted PAKI., Conclusions: Among patient who survive cardiac arrest, acute AKI is common and PAKI occurs in more than one third. PAKI is associated both with survival and with length of stay at the hospital. High doses of adrenaline, high serial serum lactate levels, and dose of dobutamine predict PAKI. Evaluation of the trajectory of renal function over the first few days after resuscitation can provide prognostic information about patient recovery., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: The Resuscitation Science Symposium (ReSS) is the dedicated international forum for resuscitation science at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions. In an attempt to increase curated content and social media presence during ReSS 2017, the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA) coordinated an inaugural social media campaign., Methods and Results: Before ReSS, 8 resuscitation science professionals were recruited from a convenience sample of attendees at ReSS 2017. Each blogger was assigned to either a morning or an afternoon session, responsible for "live tweeting" with the associated hashtags #ReSS17 and #AHA17. Twitter analytics from the 8 bloggers were collected from November 10 to 13, 2017. The primary outcome was Twitter impressions. Secondary outcomes included Twitter engagement and Twitter engagement rate. In total, 8 bloggers (63% male) generated 591 tweets that garnered 261 050 impressions, 8013 engagements, 928 retweets, 1653 likes, 292 hashtag clicks, and a median engagement rate of 2.4%. Total engagement, likes, and hashtag clicks were highest on day 2; total impressions were highest on day 3, and retweets were highest on day 4. Total impressions were highly correlated with the total number of tweets ( r =0.87; P =0.005) and baseline number of Twitter followers for each blogger ( r =0.78; P =0.02)., Conclusion: In this inaugural social media campaign for the 2017 American Heart Association ReSS, the degree of online engagement with this content by end users was quite good when evaluated by social media standards. Benchmarks for end-user interactions in the scientific community are undefined and will require further study., (© 2018 The Authors. Published on behalf of the American Heart Association, Inc., by Wiley.)

Cardiac arrest is the most common cause of death in North America. Neurocritical care interventions, including targeted temperature management (TTM), have significantly improved neurological outcomes in patients successfully resuscitated from cardiac arrest. Therefore, resuscitation following cardiac arrest was chosen as an emergency neurological life support protocol. Patients remaining comatose following resuscitation from cardiac arrest should be considered for TTM. This protocol will review induction, maintenance, and re-warming phases of TTM, along with management of TTM side effects. Aggressive shivering suppression is necessary with this treatment to ensure the maintenance of a target temperature. Ancillary testing, including electrocardiography, computed tomography and/or magnetic resonance imaging of the brain, continuous electroencephalography monitoring, and correction of electrolyte, blood gas, and hematocrit changes, are also necessary to optimize outcomes.

Background: Cardiac arrest patients often suffer from dysfunction of multiple organ systems after return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC). The incidence of renal dysfunction in patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is not well described. Renal dysfunction has been associated with worse outcomes in critical illness., Hypothesis: Renal dysfunction is common after OHCA, and renal dysfunction is independently associated with survival., Methods: We performed a retrospective review of consecutive adult patients admitted to an intensive care unit after successful resuscitation from OHCA between 01/01/2005 and 12/31/2010. Patients were excluded for death or withdrawal of care within 24h, preexisting end-stage renal disease, or OHCA due to hyperkalemia. The RIFLE criteria were used to classify subjects with renal dysfunction into one of three categories - risk, injury, or failure - based on trending of serum creatinine concentration or glomerular filtration rate. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics., Results: Of 364 patients, 38 were excluded due to death or withdrawal of care within 24h, 11 due to end-stage renal disease, and 4 due to OHCA from hyperkalemia, leaving 311 patients in the final analysis. The mean age was 58 (SD 16) years; 174 (59%) were male, VF/VT was the primary rhythm in 156 (50%), and 236 (80%) were comatose at hospital arrival. Among 311 patients, 32 (10.3%) developed acute renal failure (ARF), 27 (8.7%) developed acute kidney injury (AKI), and 56 (18.0%) developed risk of renal dysfunction. Of the 32 subjects that developed ARF, renal replacement therapy (RRT) was initiated on 13 (40.6%). Development of ARF was not associated with survival (OR 0.73; 95% CI 0.26, 2.05) after adjusting for initial rhythm or illness severity., Conclusions: More than one-third of patients resuscitated from OHCA developed evidence of renal dysfunction, and 19% of patients meeting criteria for AKI or ARF. In this study, development of renal failure was not independently associated with survival., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Cardiac arrest is the most common cause of death in North America. Neurocritical care interventions, including therapeutic hypothermia (TH), have significantly improved neurological outcomes in patients successfully resuscitated from cardiac arrest. Therefore, resuscitation following cardiac arrest was chosen as an Emergency Neurological Life Support protocol. Patients remaining comatose following resuscitation from cardiac arrest and who are not bleeding are potential candidates for TH. This protocol will review induction, maintenance, and re-warming phases of TH, along with management of TH side effects. Aggressive shivering suppression is necessary with this treatment to ensure the maintenance of a target temperature. Ancillary testing, including electrocardiography, computed tomography imaging of the brain, continuous electroencephalography, monitoring, and correction of electrolyte, blood gas, and hematocrit changes are also necessary to optimize outcomes.

Background: Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) improves outcomes in comatose survivors of cardiac arrest. Few hospitals have protocol-driven plans that include TH. We implemented a series of process interventions designed to increase TH use and improve outcomes in patients successfully resuscitated from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) or in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA)., Methods and Results: Linked interventions including a TH order sheet, verbal and written feedback to individual providers, an educational program, TH "kit" and on-call consultants to assist with patient care and hypothermia induction were implemented between January 1, 2005 and December 31, 2007 in a large, university-affiliated, tertiary care center. We then completed a retrospective review of all patients treated for cardiac arrest during the study period. Descriptive statistics, chi-squared analyses, or Fisher's exact test were used as appropriate. A p value <0.05 was considered significant. 135 OHCA patients and 106 IHCA patients were eligible for post-arrest care. TH use increased each year in the OHCA group (from 6% to 65% to 76%; p<0.001) and IHCA group (from 0% to 36% to 53%; p=.02). A good outcome was achieved in 21% and 8% of comatose patients with OHCA and IHCA, respectively. Patients with OHCA and ventricular dysrhythmia were more likely to have a good outcome with TH treatment than without it (good outcome in 57% vs. 8%; p=.005)., Conclusion: Implementing a series of aggressive interventions increased appropriate TH use and was associated with improved outcomes in our facility.

Objective: There is no evidence showing an impact from any advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) medications on patient survival following cardiac arrest. One potential reason for a lack of such benefit may be medication timing. We formed the hypothesis that medications are given late after rescuer arrival, limiting any benefit. We performed a meta-analysis to determine the time from emergency medical services (EMS) dispatch to first medication administration, regardless of route, during out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OOHCA). Then, the mean time and ranges of reported study medication delivery in clinical trials where medication was the experimental intervention was determined., Methods: We conducted a comprehensive literature review between January 1990 and August 2005 in MEDLINE using the following MeSH headings: cardiopulmonary resuscitation, cardiac arrest, heart arrest, EMS, EMT, ambulance, and the names of all ACLS medications. We reviewed the abstracts of 632 studies and full manuscripts of 248 published papers. We eliminated the following articles from further analysis: non-peer reviewed; all without human primary data (includes review articles, guidelines or consensus manuscripts, editorials, or simulation studies); animal data; case reports. We used no language restriction. From this search, our independent reviewers found 17 papers that contained information on time to medication administration., Results: We analyzed reporting of drug delivery time to 7617 patients in 32 different emergency medical services systems. Time to first medication delivery by any route was a mean of 17.7 min (range 10.0-25.0; 95% CI around mean 10.6, 24.8). Time to intravenous experimental medication administration was a mean of 19.4 min (range 13.3-25.0; 95% CI around mean 12.8, 25.9)., Conclusions: Medications are given late during out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, even in cohorts where drug delivery is a key study intervention.