Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38172300›Full record

ArticleIntensive care medicine2024

The predictive value of highly malignant EEG patterns after cardiac arrest: evaluation of the ERC-ESICM recommendations.

Sara Turella, Josef Dankiewicz, Hans Friberg, Janus Christian Jakobsen, Christoph Leithner, Helena Levin, Gisela Lilja, Marion Moseby-Knappe, Niklas Nielsen, Andrea O Rossetti and 5 more

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Intensive care medicine, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
22citing papers in PubMed, 3 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
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.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

22 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Guideline
  2. Guideline
  3. Pooled it
  4. Trial
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Observational
  8. Role of Neurophysiologic Testing in Prognostication of Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy.Journal of clinical neurophysiology : official publication of the American Electroencephalographic Society · 2026
    Review
  9. Observational
  10. Observational
  11. Article
  12. Observational
  13. Article
  14. Update on acute brain injury.Intensive care medicine · 2025
    Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Review
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Multiomic biomarkers after cardiac arrest.Intensive care medicine experimental · 2024
    Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

15 authors.

Sara TurellaDepartment of Intensive Care, Emergency Medicine and Anesthesiology, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario "Agostino Gemelli", IRCCS, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy.
Josef DankiewiczDepartment of Clinical Sciences Lund, Cardiology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
Hans FribergDepartment of Clinical Sciences Lund, Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
Janus Christian JakobsenCopenhagen Trial Unit, Capital Region, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Christoph LeithnerDepartment of Neurology and Experimental Neurology, Charité, Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt- Universität zu Berlin, Augustenburger Platz 1, 13353, Berlin, Germany.
Helena LevinDepartment of Clinical Sciences Lund, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
Gisela LiljaDepartment of Clinical Sciences Lund, Neurology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
Marion Moseby-KnappeDepartment of Clinical Sciences Lund, Neurology and Rehabilitation, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
Niklas NielsenDepartment of Clinical Sciences Lund, Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Helsingborg Hospital, Helsingborg, Sweden.
Andrea O RossettiDepartment of Neurology, University Hospital (CHUV) and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Claudio SandroniDepartment of Intensive Care, Emergency Medicine and Anesthesiology, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario "Agostino Gemelli", IRCCS, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy.
Frédéric ZublerDepartment of Neurology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
Tobias CronbergDepartment of Clinical Sciences Lund, Neurology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
Erik WesthallDepartment of Clinical Sciences, Clinical Neurophysiology, Lund University, S-221 85, Lund, Sweden. erik.westhall@med.lu.se.ORCID 0009-0003-6552-4665
TTM2-trial investigators

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

purposeThe 2021 guidelines endorsed by the European Resuscitation Council (ERC) and the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM) recommend using highly malignant electroencephalogram (EEG) patterns (HMEP; suppression or burst-suppression) at > 24 h after cardiac arrest (CA) in combination with at least one other concordant predictor to prognosticate poor neurological outcome. We evaluated the prognostic accuracy of HMEP in a large multicentre cohort and investigated the added value of absent EEG reactivity.

methodsThis is a pre-planned prognostic substudy of the Targeted Temperature Management trial 2. The presence of HMEP and background reactivity to external stimuli on EEG recorded > 24 h after CA was prospectively reported. Poor outcome was measured at 6 months and defined as a modified Rankin Scale score of 4-6. Prognostication was multimodal, and withdrawal of life-sustaining therapy (WLST) was not allowed before 96 h after CA.

results845 patients at 59 sites were included. Of these, 579 (69%) had poor outcome, including 304 (36%) with WLST due to poor neurological prognosis. EEG was recorded at a median of 71 h (interquartile range [IQR] 52-93) after CA. HMEP at > 24 h from CA had 50% [95% confidence interval [CI] 46-54] sensitivity and 93% [90-96] specificity to predict poor outcome. Specificity was similar (93%) in 541 patients without WLST. When HMEP were unreactive, specificity improved to 97% [94-99] (p = 0.008).

conclusionThe specificity of the ERC-ESICM-recommended EEG patterns for predicting poor outcome after CA exceeds 90% but is lower than in previous studies, suggesting that large-scale implementation may reduce their accuracy. Combining HMEP with an unreactive EEG background significantly improved specificity. As in other prognostication studies, a self-fulfilling prophecy bias may have contributed to observed results.

Indexed as

Cardiopulmonary ResuscitationHeart ArrestHypothermia, InducedClinical Trials as TopicCritical CareElectroencephalographyHumansMulticenter Studies as TopicPrognosisBrain injuryCardiac arrestComaEEGOutcomePrognosis

Identifiers

PMID38172300
PMCPMC10811097

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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.