Target temperature 34 vs. 36°C after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest - a retrospective observational study.

BACKGROUND

Intensive care for comatose survivors of cardiac arrest includes targeted temperature management (TTM) to attenuate cerebral reperfusion injury. A recent multi-center clinical trial did not show any difference in mortality or neurological outcome between TTM targeting 33°C or 36°C after out-of-hospital-cardiac-arrest (OHCA). In our institution, the TTM target was changed accordingly from 34 to 36°C. The aim of this retrospective study was to analyze if this change had affected patient outcome.

METHODS

Intensive care registry and medical record data from 79 adult patients treated for OHCA with TTM during 2010 (n = 38; 34°C) and 2014 (n = 41; 36°C) were analyzed for mortality and neurological outcome were assessed as cerebral performance category. Student's t-test was used for continuous data and Fischer's exact test for categorical data, and multivariable logistic regression was applied to detect influence from patient factors differing between the groups.

RESULTS

Witnessed arrest was more common in 2010 (95%) vs. 2014 (76%) (P = 0.03) and coronary angiography was more common in 2014 (95%) vs. 2010 (76%) (P = 0.02). The number of patients awakening later than 72 h after the arrest did not differ. After adjusting for gender, hypertension, and witnessed arrest, neither 1-year mortality (P = 0.77), nor 1-year good neurological outcome (P = 0.85) differed between the groups.

CONCLUSION

Our results, showing no difference between TTM at 34°C and TTM at 36°C as to mortality or neurological outcome after OHCA, are in line with the previous TTM-trial results, supporting the use of either target temperature in our institution.