Introduction:
Survival after in hospital (IH) cardiac arrest (CA) is at 17% suggesting that CA represents an arena of medical practice which deserves more attention. Ultrasound (US) may have a role in both intra-arrest management and peri-arrest prognosis. Very little is known about the role of ultrasound for IH CA.
Hypothesis:
Intra- arrest POCUS can provide prognostic value.
Methods:
This was a single center, prospective observational study and we included all IH CA which occurred when a provider was available to perform a standardized POCUS protocol. US and echocardiography imaging was collected during the intra- arrest period and compared with outcome measures of return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) and survival to 24 hours post-ROSC.
Results:
Echocardiographic features which may reflect survivorship include cardiac standstill, right ventricle (RV) blood flow stasis, and the appearance of thrombus formation at or around the tricuspid valve. 10 of 16 (62.50%) patients with cardiac standstill alone and 1 of 3 (33.33%) RV stasis alone did not achieve ROSC. Of those that did achieve ROSC in these two groups, none of the patients survived beyond 24 hours of the CA. 11 of 19 (57.89%) patients with RV stasis in combination with cardiac standstill did not achieve ROSC, and of the remaining 8 patients that achieved ROSC, only 1 patient survived past 24 hours. The combination of cardiac standstill, RV stasis, and tricuspid valve thrombus had 2 of 3 (66.67%) patients fail to achieve ROSC, with the remaining 1 patient surviving only to 24 hours. The presence of cardiac standstill alone confers an association with death, with an odds ratio (OR) of 1.212. RV stasis plus cardiac standstill on intra-arrest POCUS confer a markedly higher OR 0.8250 in association with death.
Conclusions:
Our preliminary work brings to light the role of POCUS for predicting short term survivorship based on echocardiographic patient features. This may have implications for resource utilization in such events.
The Dance of Death: Cardiac Arrest, Mitral and Tricuspid Valve Prolapses, and Biannular Disjunctions
