EEG monitoring after cardiac arrest--The cold facts

In the study of Crepeau et al.,1 there are several findings of interest. These include both novel and confirmatory results: 1) the EEG classification had prognostic value for favorable and unfavorable outcomes; 2) patients with electrographic reactivity were much more likely to recover consciousness than those who did not; 3) the EEG can vary and this can yield prognostic information; 4) all 5 patients with seizures died; 5) episodic low-amplitude events, essentially a burst-suppression pattern, did not have the sinister prognosis that had been found in earlier studies where hypothermia was not used.