Guidelines for Neuroprognostication in Comatose Adult Survivors of Cardiac Arrest

Among cardiac arrest survivors, about half remain comatose 72 h following return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC). Prognostication of poor neurological outcome in this population may result in withdrawal of life-sustaining therapy and death. The objective of this article is to provide recommendations on the reliability of select clinical predictors that serve as the basis of neuroprognostication and provide guidance to clinicians counseling surrogates of comatose cardiac arrest survivors.

A narrative systematic review was completed using Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) methodology. Candidate predictors, which included clinical variables and prediction models, were selected based on clinical relevance and the presence of an appropriate body of evidence. The Population, Intervention, Comparator, Outcome, Timing, Setting (PICOTS) question was framed as follows: "When counseling surrogates of comatose adult survivors of cardiac arrest, should [predictor, with time of assessment if appropriate] be considered a reliable predictor of poor functional outcome assessed at 3 months or later?" Additional full-text screening criteria were used to exclude small and lower-quality studies. Following construction of the evidence profile and summary of findings, recommendations were based on four GRADE criteria: quality of evidence, balance of desirable and undesirable consequences, values and preferences, and resource use. In addition, good practice recommendations addressed essential principles of neuroprognostication that could not be framed in PICOTS format.