Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34363855›Full record

ArticleResuscitation2021

Between-hospital variability in organ donation after resuscitation from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

Jonathan Elmer, Amy R Weisgerber, David J Wallace, Edward Horne, Susan A Stuart, Kurt Shutterly, Clifton W Callaway

Registry-linked trialOpen access · greenAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Resuscitation, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT07002294 (The Effect of SPecialty cAre on Recovery From Cardiac Arrest Trial), which is not on this map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
2.9field-weighted citation impact, top 9% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

NCT07002294 narecruitingnot on this mapstarted 2026, after this paper: background citation

The Effect of SPecialty cAre on Recovery From Cardiac Arrest Trial (the SPARC Trial)

TypeinterventionalSponsorUniversity of PittsburghRan2026 to 2032Enrolled1,618ConditionsCardiac Arrest (CA), Heart Arrest, Heart Arrest, Out-Of-HospitalArmsTransfer to specialty care, Usual care
3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 15 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Guideline
  2. Trial
  3. Contribution of donor hospital characteristics to deceased donor organ recovery rates.American journal of transplantation : official journal of the American Society of Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons · 2026
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Jonathan ElmerDepartment of Emergency Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, USA; Department of Critical Care Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, USA; Department of Neurology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, USA. Electronic address: elmerjp@upmc.edu.
Amy R WeisgerberCenter for Organ Recovery and Education, Pittsburgh, USA.
David J WallaceDepartment of Critical Care Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, USA.
Edward HorneCenter for Organ Recovery and Education, Pittsburgh, USA.
Susan A StuartCenter for Organ Recovery and Education, Pittsburgh, USA.
Kurt ShutterlyCenter for Organ Recovery and Education, Pittsburgh, USA.
Clifton W CallawayDepartment of Emergency Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, USA.
Organ Recovery Systems (United States) · USUniversity of Pittsburgh · US

Funding

Quantitative electroencephalography after cardiac arrestK23NS097629 · NINDS · UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH · PI ELMER, JONATHAN · 2017 to 2021
$945k
NINDS NIH HHS K23 NS097629
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

introductionSurvival and recovery after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) varies between hospitals, with better outcomes associated with high-volume and specialty care. We evaluated if there is a similar relationship with organ donation after OHCA.

methodsWe studied a cohort of adults resuscitated from OHCA from 2010 to 2018, treated at one of 112 hospitals served by a regional organ procurement organization (OPO). We obtained hospital-level characteristics from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Health Resources and Services Administration and obtained patients' clinical information from the OPO health record. We excluded patients with no potential to donate on initial referral. Our primary exposure was treatment at a high-volume hospital (defined > 500 eligible cases during the study period) and our primary outcomes were suitability to donate after full medical evaluation, successful organ procurement and organ transplantation. We used mixed effects models to quantify between-hospital variability in the primary outcomes.

resultsOverall, 9792 patients were included and 796 (8%) were organ donors. We identified significant between-hospital variation in odds of donation (median odds ratio 1.64 [95% CI 1.42-2.02]). Hospital volume explained the greatest proportion of variability. High volume centers had a higher proportion of referrals with potential to donate (16.9 vs 12.2%), actual donation (10.3 vs 6.2%), and successful transplantation (9.4 vs 5.7%). Overall, 2032/7763 (26%) of recovered transplantable organs in this region were procured from OHCA patients.

conclusionHigh volume centers are more likely to refer and procure transplantable organs from patients with non-survivable OHCA.

Indexed as

Cardiopulmonary ResuscitationOrgan TransplantationOut-of-Hospital Cardiac ArrestTissue and Organ ProcurementAdultAgedHospitalsHumansMedicareRetrospective StudiesUnited StatesCardiac arrestOrgan donationOutcomesTransplantVariability

Identifiers

PMID34363855
PMCPMC8530950
OpenAlexW3187120789

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Registered trials

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.