Introduction

Cardiac Arrest (CA) following a non-traumatic cause is associated with a poor outcome. In United Kingdom, NHS ambulance services attend to approximately 30,000 patients a year for Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) [Perkins, 2015].

and according to the latest National Cardiac Arrest Audit data there were 10,414 patients who suffered an In-hospital Cardiac Arrest (IHCA) [NCAA, 20-21].

Average survival to hospital discharge for Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) patients was only 8.6% [Resus Council, 2015] and for inpatients was 21.8% [NHCAA, 20-21]. Equivalent results are also recorded in the American continent [Geocadin, 2017].

Despite advances in post-resuscitation care management, about 50% of resuscitated patients from CA die or have a poor neurological prognosis. One of the major causes of mortality following CA is severe neurological damage due to post-anoxic brain injury [Nolan, 2015].

The associated costs and length of stay is also significantly higher in patients with poor neurological outcome. [Petrie, 2014]. There are further considerations like community care and rehabilitation, quality of life and emotional impact on the family.

It is therefore essential to predict neurological outcome in this group of patients as early as possible, to potentially enable early withdrawal of life-saving treatment (WLST) in those patients predicted to have a poor outcome [Eveson, 2017].