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Cardiac arrest is a common and fatal emergency situation. Recently, an increasing number of studies have shown that anemia in patients with cardiac arrest is closely related to high mortality rates and poor neurological outcomes. Anemia is prevalent among patients with post-cardiac arrest syndrome (PCAS), but its specific pathogenesis remains unclear. The mechanisms may involve various factors, including reduced production of erythropoietin, oxidative stress/inflammatory responses, gastrointestinal ischemic injury, hepcidin abnormalities, iatrogenic blood loss, and malnutrition. Measures to improve anemia related to cardiac arrest may include blood transfusions, administration of erythropoietin, anti-inflammation and antioxidant therapies, supplementation of hematopoietic materials, protection of gastrointestinal mucosa, and use of hepcidin antibodies and antagonists. Therefore, exploring the latest research progress on the mechanisms and treatment of anemia related to cardiac arrest is of significant guiding importance for improving secondary brain injury caused by anemia and the prognosis of patients with cardiac arrest.

Background: Patients experiencing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) and subsequent post-cardiac arrest syndrome are often compromised by multi-organ failure. The Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score has been used to predict clinical outcome of patients requiring intensive care for multi-organ failure. Thus, the assessment of SOFA score is recommended as a criterion for sepsis. Although post-cardiac arrest patients frequently develop sepsis-like status in ICU, there are limited reports evaluating the SOFA score in post-cardiac arrest patients. We investigated the predictive value of the SOFA score in survival and neurological outcomes in patients with post-cardiac arrest syndrome., Methods: A total of 231 cardiovascular arrest patients achieving return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) were finally extracted from the institutional consecutive database comprised of 1218 OHCA patients transferred to the institution between January 2015 and July 2018. The SOFA score was calculated on admission and after 48h. Predictors of survival and neurological outcome defined as having cerebral-performance-category (CPC) 1 or 2 at 30 days were determined., Results: SOFA score was lower in survived patients (5.0 vs 10.0, p<0.001) and those with favorable neurological outcome (5.0 vs 8.0, p<0.001) as compared with the counterparts. The SOFA score on admission was an independent predictor of survival (OR 0.68, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.59-0.78; p<0.001) and favorable neurological performance (OR 0.79; 95% CI 0.69-0.90; p<0.001) at 30 days. Furthermore, a change in SOFA score (48-0h) was predictive of favorable 30-day neurological outcome (OR 0.71, 95% CI 0.60-0.85; p<0.001)., Conclusions: Evaluation of the SOFA score in the ICU is useful to predict survival and neurological outcome in post-cardiac arrest patients., (Copyright © 2020 Japanese College of Cardiology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background Hyperoxia during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) may lead to oxidative injury from mitochondrial-derived reactive oxygen species, despite guidelines recommending 1.0 inspired oxygen during CPR. We hypothesized exposure to 1.0 inspired oxygen during CPR would result in cerebral hyperoxia, higher mitochondrial-derived reactive oxygen species, increased oxidative injury, and similar survival compared with those exposed to 21% oxygen. Methods and Results Four-week-old piglets (n=25) underwent asphyxial cardiac arrest followed by randomization and blinding to CPR with 0.21 (n=10) or 1.0 inspired oxygen (n=10) through 10 minutes post return of spontaneous circulation. Sham was n=5. Survivors received 4 hours of protocolized postarrest care, whereupon brain was obtained for mitochondrial analysis and neuropathology. Groups were compared using Kruskal-Wallis test, Wilcoxon rank-sum test, and generalized estimating equations regression models. Both 1.0 and 0.21 groups were similar in systemic hemodynamics and cerebral blood flow, as well as survival (8/10). The 1.0 animals had relative cerebral hyperoxia during CPR and immediately following return of spontaneous circulation (brain tissue oxygen tension, 85% [interquartile range, 72%-120%] baseline in 0.21 animals versus 697% [interquartile range, 515%-721%] baseline in 1.0 animals; P =0.001 at 10 minutes postarrest). Cerebral mitochondrial reactive oxygen species production was higher in animals treated with 1.0 compared with 0.21 ( P <0.03). Exposure to 1.0 oxygen led to increased cerebral oxidative injury to proteins and lipids, as evidenced by significantly higher protein carbonyls and 4-hydroxynoneals compared with 0.21 ( P <0.05) and sham ( P <0.001). Conclusions Exposure to 1.0 inspired oxygen during CPR caused cerebral hyperoxia during resuscitation, and resultant increased mitochondrial-derived reactive oxygen species and oxidative injury following cardiac arrest.

Objective: After cardiac arrest (CA), epileptiform EEG, occurring in about 1/3 of patients, often but not invariably heralds poor prognosis. We tested the hypothesis that a combination of specific EEG features identifies patients who may regain consciousness despite early epileptiform patterns., Methods: We retrospectively analyzed a registry of comatose patients post-CA (2 Swiss centers), including those with epileptiform EEG. Background and epileptiform features in EEGs 12-36 hours or 36-72 hours from CA were scored according to the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society nomenclature. Best Cerebral Performance Category (CPC) score within 3 months (CPC 1-3 vs 4-5) was the primary outcome. Significant EEG variables were combined in a score assessed with receiver operating characteristic curves, and independently validated in a US cohort; its correlation with serum neuron-specific enolase (NSE) was also tested., Results: Of 488 patients, 107 (21.9%) had epileptiform EEG <72 hours; 18 (17%) reached CPC 1-3. EEG 12-36 hours background continuity ≥50%, absence of epileptiform abnormalities ( p < 0.00001 each), 12-36 and 36-72 hours reactivity ( p < 0.0001 each), 36-72 hours normal background amplitude ( p = 0.0004), and stimulus-induced discharges ( p = 0.0001) correlated with favorable outcome. The combined 6-point score cutoff ≥2 was 100% sensitive (95% confidence interval [CI], 78%-100%) and 70% specific (95% CI, 59%-80%) for CPC 1-3 (area under the curve [AUC], 0.98; 95% CI, 0.94-1.00). Increasing score correlated with NSE (ρ = -0.46, p = 0.0001). In the validation cohort (41 patients), the score was 100% sensitive (95% CI, 60%-100%) and 88% specific (95% CI, 73%-97%) for CPC 1-3 (AUC, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.91-1.00)., Conclusion: Prognostic value of early epileptiform EEG after CA can be estimated combining timing, continuity, reactivity, and amplitude features in a score that correlates with neuronal damage., (© 2020 American Academy of Neurology.)

Introduction: There are no established risk classification for post-cardiac arrest syndrome (PCAS) patients at the Emergency Department (ED) undergoing targeted temperature management (TTM). The aim of this study was to externally validate a simplified version of our prognostic score, the "post-Cardiac Arrest Syndrome for Therapeutic hypothermia score" (revised CAST [rCAST]) and estimate the predictive accuracy of the risk classification based on it., Methods: For the external validation, we used data from an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) registry of the Japanese Association for Acute Medicine (JAAM), which is a multicenter, prospective registry of OHCA patients across Japan. Eligible patients were PCAS patients treated with TTM at 33-36 °C between June 2014 and December 2015. We validated the accuracy of rCAST for predicting the neurological outcomes at 30 and 90 days., Results: Among the 12,024 OHCA patients, the data of 460 PCAS patients treated by TTM were eligible for the validation. The areas under the curve of rCAST for predicting the neurological outcomes at 30 and 90 days were 0.892 and 0.895, respectively. The estimated sensitivity and specificity of the risk categories for the outcomes were as follows: 0.95 (95% CI: 0.92-0.98) and 0.47 (0.40-0.55) for the low (rCAST: ≤5.5), 0.62 (0.56-0.68) and 0.48 (0.40-0.55) for the moderate (rCAST: 6.0-14.0), and 0.57 (0.51-0.63) and 0.95 (0.91-0.98) for the high severity category (rCAST: ≥14.5)., Conclusions: The rCAST was useful for predicting the neurological outcomes with high accuracy in PCAS patients, and the three grades was developed for a risk classification based on the rCAST., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)