Evaluation of postresuscitation left ventricular global and segmental function by radionuclide ventriculography in sudden coronary death survivors of prehospital cardiac arrest: Correlation to subsequent short-term prognosis.

Previous data have shown that patients with significant left ventricular (LV) dysfunction, marked abnormalities in resting hemodynamics, and multiple vessel coronary artery disease (CAD) are at increased risk for sudden cardiac death. However, in-hospital assessment of ventricular function in the early postresuscitation period of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest has not been evaluated and related to short-term outcome. By using bedside radionuclide ventriculography (RNV) we evaluated LV ejection fraction (LVEF) and wall motion in 36 nonconsecutive patients within 24 hours of their episode of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. There were 24 men and 12 women with mean age of 62.3 years (range 21 to 85 years). Total mortality of the entire group was 38.8% at 4 weeks. Eighteen patients had LVEF less than 0.30 and 18 had LVEF greater than 0.30. Mortality in the low LVEF group was 55.5% at 4 weeks versus 22.2% in patients with LVEF greater than 0.30 (p less than 0.05). Patients with normal LV wall motion had no short-term mortality (none of seven), while patients having abnormal LV wall motion had a significantly higher short-term mortality (14 of 29) (p less than 0.05). We conclude that out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survivors have a high incidence of severe LV dysfunction in the early postresuscitation period and that a significantly higher early mortality is seen in the group with LVEF less than 0.30. In addition, abnormalities of LV wall motion by RNV examination demonstrated poorer prognosis in the first 4 weeks than patients with normal LV wall motion.