Background: Mortality after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) with return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) remains high despite numerous efforts to improve outcome. For patients with suspected coronary cause of arrest, coronary angiography is crucial. However, there are other causes and potentially life-threatening injuries related to cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), which can be detected by routine computed tomography (CT).Materials and Methods: At Hannover Medical School, rapid coronary angiography and CT are performed in successfully resuscitated OHCA patients as a standard of care prior to admission to intensive care. We analyzed all patients who received CT following OHCA with ROSC over a three-year period.Results: There were 225 consecutive patients with return of spontaneous circulation following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Mean age was 64 ± 13 years, 75% were male. Of them, 174 (77%) had witnessed arrest, 145 (64%) received bystander CPR, and 123 (55%) had a primary shockable rhythm. Mean time to ROSC was 24 ± 20 min. There were no significant differences in CT pathologies in patients with or without ST-segment elevations in the initial ECG. Critical CT findings qualifying as a potential cause for cardiac arrest were intracranial bleeding (N = 6), aortic dissection (N = 5), pulmonary embolism (N = 17), pericardial tamponade (N = 3), and tension pneumothorax (N = 11). Other pathologies were regarded as consequences of CPR and relevant for further treatment: aspiration (N = 62), rib fractures (N = 161), sternal fractures (N = 50), spinal fractures (N = 11), hepatic bleeding (N = 12), and intra-abdominal air (N = 3).Conclusion: Early CT fallowing OHCA uncovers a high number of causes and consequences of OHCA and CPR. Those are relevant for post-arrest care and are frequently life-threatening, suggesting that CT can contribute to improving prognosis following OHCA.

Background: Neuron-specific enolase (NSE) and S-100b have been used to assess neurological damage following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Cut-offs were derived from small normothermic cohorts. Whether similar cut-offs apply to patients treated with hypothermia remained undetermined. Methods: We investigated 251 patients with OHCA treated with hypothermia but without routine prognostication. Neuromarkers were determined at day 3, neurological outcome was assessed after hospital discharge by cerebral performance category (CPC). Results: Good neurological outcome (CPC≤2) was achieved in 41%. Elevated neuromarkers, older age and absence of ST-segment elevation after ROSC were associated with increased mortality. Poor neurological outcome in survivors was additionally associated with history of cerebrovascular events, sepsis and higher admission lactate. Mean NSE was 33μg/l [16–94] vs. 119μg/l [25–406]; p<0.001, for survivors vs. non-survivors, and 21μg/l [16–29] vs. 40μg/l [23–98], p<0.001 for good vs. poor neurological outcome. S-100b was 0.127μg/l [0.063–0.360] vs. 0.772μg/l [0.121–2.710], p<0.001 and 0.086μg/l [0.061–0.122] vs. 0.138μg/l [0.090–0.271], p = 0.009, respectively. For mortality, thresholds of 36μg/l for NSE and 0.128μg/l for S-100b could be determined; for poor neurological outcome 33μg/l (NSE) and 0.123μg/l (S-100b), respectively. Positive predictive value for NSE was 81% (74–88) and 79% (71–85) for S-100b. Conclusions: Thresholds for NSE and S-100b predicting mortality and poor neurological outcome are similar in OHCA patients receiving therapeutic hypothermia as in those reported before the era of hypothermia. However, both biomarkers do not have enough specificity to predict mortality or poor neurological outcome on their own and should only be additively used in clinical decision making.

Pro- and anti-inflammatory mediators are released during and after cardiac arrest, which may be unfavourable. Small case-series and observational studies suggested that unselective hemoadsorption may reduce inadequately high cytokine levels during sepsis or cardiac surgery. We aimed to assess the effect of cytokine adsorbtion on mortality in patients following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest by comparing a patient cohort with hemoadsorption after resuscitation for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest to a control cohort without adsorption within the HAnnover COling REgistry (HACORE). We adopted an early routine use of hemoadsorption in patients after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest with increased vasopressor need and performed a 1:2 match according to age, gender, time to return of spontaneous circulation, initial left-ventricular ejection fraction, extracorporeal membrane-oxygenation or left-ventricular unloading by Impella, need for renal replacement therapy, admission lactate, pH, glomerular filtration rate to patients without an adsorber from HACORE. The primary endpoint was 30-day mortality. Twenty-four patients receiving hemoadsorption were matched to 48 patients without hemoadsorption (mean age 62±13 years, 83% male). While there was no significant difference in baseline parameters, 30-day mortality was higher in patients treated with hemoadsorption than in the matched control group (83% vs 65%, Log rank p = 0.011). Routine use of hemoadsorption did not reduce, but seems to be associated with higher 30-day mortality in patients after OHCA. Prior to routine adoption in daily practice, hemoadsorption should be evaluated in properly sized randomized controlled trials.

Thrombo-embolism of the venous system consisting of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE) is common and associated with high morbidity and mortality. Symptomatic venous thrombembolism (VTE) manifests in about 1/3 of cases as PE and 2/3 as DVT. There is a strongly compound between early mortality after venous VTE and PE, age, malignancies and cardiovascular diseases. Anticoagulation therapy is the main therapeutic approach for the treatment of acute VTE and to prevent recurrent VTE events. For decade’s classic anticoagulants like heparin, low-molecular-weight heparins (LMWHs), fondaparinux, and vitamin K antagonists have been the gold standards in therapy and are widely used. Novel oral anticoagulants (NOAC) like the direct thrombin inhibitor (dabigatran etexilate) and the direct factor Xa inhibitors (e.g. rivaroxaban, apixaban, and edoxaban) have been introduced to overcome the drawbacks of vitamin K antagonists. The efficacy and safety of these NOAC have been investigated in several randomized trials. Here we want to give an overview about the NOACS in the treatment of acute and chronic VTE and their use for primary prevention of acute VTE.

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) refractory to conventional high-quality cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) may be rescued by extracorporeal CPR (eCPR) using veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (V-A ECMO). Even when trying to identify eCPR candidates based on criteria assumed to be associated with a favourable neurological outcome, reported survival rates are frequently below 10%. All patients undergoing implantation of V-A ECMO for eCPR between January 2018 and December 2019 (N = 40) were analysed (age 53±13 years; 75% male). Patients with refractory OHCA and potentially favourable circumstances (initial shockable rhythm, witnessed arrest, bystander CPR, absence of limiting comorbidities, age 15mmol/L in 30 out of 40 patients. Moreover, 22 out of 40 patients had a non-shockable rhythm on the first ECG. Despite our intention to select patients with potentially advantageous circumstances to achieve acceptable eCPR outcomes, the imminent deadly consequence of withholding eCPR obviously prompted individual physicians to perform the procedure also in presumably more unfavourable settings, resulting in similar mortality rates of eCPR as reported before.

This study investigates the prognostic value of the aspartate-to-alanine aminotransferase ratio (i.e., AST/ALT ratio) and bilirubin in patients with cardiogenic shock (CS). Despite ongoing improvements regarding the treatment of CS patients, invasive care unit (ICU) mortality in CS patients remains unacceptably high. Limited data regarding the prognostic value of the AST/ALT ratio and bilirubin in patients suffering from CS is available. The authors hypothesize the measurement of liver enzymes during the course of CS may be an easy and feasible method to assess right-heart dysfunction and prognosis in patients with CS. Consecutive patients with CS from 2019 to 2021 were included. Blood samples were retrieved from the day of disease onset (day 1), days 2, 3, 4 and 8. The prognostic value of the AST/ALT ratio and bilirubin was tested for 30-day all-cause mortality. Statistical analyses included univariable t-tests, Spearman’s correlations, Kaplan–Meier analyses, as well as multivariable Cox proportional regression analyses. A total of 157 CS patients were included, with an overall rate of all-cause mortality at 30 days of 51%. The median AST/ALT ratio on day 1 was 1.4, and the median bilirubin was 0.63 mg/dL. No association of the baseline AST/ALT ratio (HR = 1.005; 95% CI 0.649–1.558; p = 0.981) and bilirubin (HR = 1.320; 95% CI 0.834–2.090; p = 0.236) with the risk of 30-day all-cause mortality was found. In contrast, the AST/ALT ratio on day 4 was associated with the risk of 30-day all-cause mortality (HR = 2.826; 95% CI 1.227–6.510; p = 0.015), which was still evident after the multivariable adjustment (HR = 2.830; 95% CI 1.054–7.690; p = 0.039). The AST/ALT ratio during the course of ICU hospitalization from day 4—but not the baseline AST/ALT ratio and bilirubin—was associated with an increased risk of 30-day all-cause mortality in CS patients.