Lower heart rate is associated with good one-year outcome in post-resuscitation patients

Background: Optimal hemodynamic goals in post-resuscitation patients are not clear. Previous studies have reported an association between lower heart rate and good outcome in patients receiving targeted temperature management (TTM) after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Methods: We analyzed heart rate (HR) and outcome data of 504 post-resuscitation patients from the prospectively collected database of the FINNRESUSCI study. One-year neurologic outcome was dichotomized by the Cerebral Performance Category (CPC) to good (1-2) or poor (3-5). Results: Of 504 patients, 40.1% (202/504) had good and 59.9% (302/504) had poor one-year neurologic outcome. Patients with good outcome had lower time-weighted mean HR during the first 48 h in the ICU (69.2 bpm [59.2-75.1] vs. 76.6 bpm [65.72-89.6], p