Association of early withdrawal of life-sustaining therapy for perceived neurological prognosis with mortality after cardiac arrest.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Withdrawing life-sustaining therapy because of perceived poor neurological prognosis (WLST-N) is a common cause of hospital death after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Although current guidelines recommend against WLST-N before 72h (WLST-N<72), this practice is common and may increase mortality. We sought to quantify these effects.

Methods

In a secondary analysis of a multicenter OHCA trial, we evaluated survival to hospital discharge and survival with favorable functional status (modified Rankin Score ≤3) in adults alive >1h after hospital admission. Propensity score modeling the probability of exposure to WLST-N<72 based on pre-exposure covariates was used to match unexposed subjects with those exposed to WLST-N<72. We determined the probability of surviv

SUBMITTER: Elmer J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4834233 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature