Cardiac Arrest

Adults who are unconscious or severely ill and need a breathing tube connected to a ventilator are at high risk of developing a lung infection (pneumonia) within the first few days in the intensive care unit. This early pneumonia affects up to 30 to 50 % of certain high-risk patients, prolongs the time on the ventilator and in hospital, and increases the use of antibiotics. Two strategies are commonly used today to try to prevent this infection: a short, three-day course of an intravenous antibiotic, and removal of secretions from the airway with a sterile suction catheter. Both have limitations - antibiotics can favour the growth of resistant bacteria, and catheter suctioning is uncomfortable and may injure the airway. PIRÁMIDES is a small (60-patient) pilot study that compares the current practice with two non-invasive, mechanical alternatives for keeping the airway clear: a continuous low-pressure suction system built into a special breathing tube, and a device that produces a gentle, programmed "artificial cough" through the ventilator. Adult patients who are intubated for severe trauma, severe brain injury, stroke, resuscitated cardiac arrest or other causes of decreased consciousness are randomly assigned, in equal numbers, to one of the three approaches and followed for 14 days, with a final visit at day 90. The main goal is to find out which of the three strategies best prevents early pneumonia, and which provides the best overall result for patients when survival, severity of infection, need for additional antibiotics and side effects are considered together. To make these comparisons as fair as possible in an open-label study, an independent committee of doctors not involved in patient care reviews each suspected pneumonia case without knowing which strategy the patient received. The results will help design a larger trial to confirm which approach is safest and most effective for preventing early pneumonia in critically ill patients on a ventilator.

To assess the performance of a predictive model resulting from the analysis of sMRI/fMRI/contrast-enhanced MRI-derived personalized connectomic data, as compared with standard predictors (clinical examination, electrophysiology, serum biomarker, standard neuroimaging) collected ≥ 72h from sedation withdrawal and in normothermia condition, to predict anoxoischemic coma neurological outcome at 6 months.

Evaluation of the level of hypoxemia during the occurrence of cardiocirculatory arrest during a Maastricht III organ donation procedure.

The goal of this observational study is to determine whether specific advanced MRI measures are associated with functional outcomes in patients who are comatose after cardiac arrest. The main question\[s\] it aims to answer are: Aim 1: Determine if stimulus-based functional MRI (fMRI)-measured activations are independently associated with favorable neurological outcomes after cardiac arrest Aim 2: Determine if resting state functional MRI (rs-fMRI)-measured functional network connectivity is independently associated with favorable neurological outcomes after cardiac arrest. Aim 3: Determine if diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)-measured white matter integrity is associated with favorable neurological outcomes after cardiac arrest. Participants will undergo advanced MRI sequences at time of clinical MRI, and will be followed for 6 months post-arrest.

Neurological injury remains an important cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with ECPR. At present, the results of three prospective randomized controlled studies on ECPR are inconsistent, and it is inconclusive whether ECPR can improve the neurological outcomes of patients with refractory cardiac arrest. Several study found that extracorporeal membrane oxygenation nonsurvivors can lead toacute brain injury.Further research with a systematic neurologic monitoring is necessary to define the timing of acute brain injury in patients with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.Moreover, brain injury that occurs during extracorporeal membrane oxygenation therapy is not easy to detect in time because of the use of analgesics, sedatives, and muscle relaxants. Surprisingly, little attention has been paid to the role of cerebral perfusion and oxygenation. Moreover,the features of cerebrovascular pathophysiology and optimal management strategies are still vague. Therefore multimodal neuromonitoring may be a valuable tool for detecting brain injury in patients with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and providing early intervention guidance. Multimodal neuromonitoring, integrating tools such as near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), transcranial Doppler, and continuous electroencephalography, may enable early detection of brain injury and guide targeted interventions. Hypothesis: Multimodal neuromonitoring combined with a standard care management will increase the proportion of patients achieving survival with favorable neurological outcome (Cerebral Performance Category \[CPC\] 1-2) at 30 days compared with standard care without protocolized neuromonitoring. Primary Objective: To test whether a multimodal neuromonitoring strategy improves 30-day survival with favorable neurological outcome (CPC 1-2) in adult patients with refractory cardiac arrest treated with ECPR.

Patients successfully resuscitated from sudden cardiac arrest are often comatose, having suffered a period of low blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain. They are also at risk of suffering further brain injury during the immediate period after resuscitation, in which the brain's normal regulatory functions are impaired. To diagnose and treat secondary brain injury in comatose patients after cardiac arrest, doctors use a variety of neurological monitoring techniques. One of these methods involves measuring the oxygen saturation of blood going into and out of the brain to determine whether the brain is receiving and utilizing oxygen in an optimal manner. The oxygen saturation of blood exiting the brain is called the jugular venous oxygen saturation (SjO2). It is measured by inserting a catheter into the jugular vein in the neck and sampling blood as it exits the skull. The blood sample is sent to the hospital laboratory and the oxygen saturation is measured on a blood gas machine. This method of SjO2 measurement has limitations, particularly that blood must be taken out of the patient and sent to the lab for analysis, which can only be done feasibly every few hours. Special catheters exist that can measure the oxygen saturation of blood passing by the tip of the catheter inside the patient on a second-by-second basis, without needing to withdraw blood and send it to the laboratory. With such rapidly available data, doctors may be able to better diagnose and treat brain oxygen abnormalities in post cardiac arrest patients. In this study, the investigators plan to determine the accuracy of an existing, Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-cleared catheter capable of continuous, indwelling measurement of venous blood oxygen saturation for SjO2 monitoring in comatose patients early after cardiac arrest. The SjO2 measurements from the study catheter will be compared with standard SjO2 measurements made by withdrawing blood and analyzing it in the laboratory to determine if the new catheter is accurate. The investigators will also collect blood samples using the study catheter to measure levels of specific proteins that indicate damage to brain tissue. The study will enroll 25 participants admitted to the intensive care unit at one hospital cared for by a group of doctors that specialize in the neurological care of patients after cardiac arrest. The investigators hypothesize that the study catheter will accurately measure SjO2 compared to the standard laboratory method.

This study uses a non-invasive (external) ultrasound test called Transcranial Doppler (TCD) to measure how blood flows through the major arteries of the brain of children receiving care in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). TCD is already used for clinical reasons in many children, but it is not part of routine monitoring for every critically ill child. By using TCD, the investigators hope to better understand how brain blood flow changes during illness. They will also track children's functional status from before their illness to the time of PICU discharge to explore how brain blood flow patterns relate to neurological outcomes.125 participants will be enrolled and will be on study while in the PICU, estimated to be 3-14 days.

The overall goal of this project is to design, develop, and pilot test an emergency healthcare drone delivery system suitable for rural communities that can deliver AEDs to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) locations more rapidly than can be achieved with current first responder and EMS systems. The goal is to determine whether this method of AED delivery can be achieved rapidly enough to justify a future clinical trial directly testing its ability to improve OHCA survival.

Among patients admitted after an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) in intensive care unit (ICU), almost two thirds of patients will develop in the first hours a post-cardiac arrest (CA) shock. This post-CA shock, combines cardiac and hemodynamic failure, generally resulting in multi-organ failure and early death in up to 35% of patients. Experimental data suggest that intravenous ascorbic acid (vitamin C) may attenuate inflammation and vascular injury related to sepsis or surgery. Preclinical and clinical studies also provide safety data of high dose intravenous vitamin C (\> 200mg/kg/day) with no significant adverse event reported and favorable impact on outcome. Experimental data also suggest beneficial effect of vitamin C in post-CA management with improvement of shock and multi-organ failure with potential benefit on neuroprotection and outcome. The study is a phase II multicenter prospective controlled open-label trial randomized in two parallel groups : * Expérimental group: Standard of care care for post-CA shock + Vitamin C (Vit-C) 200mg/kg/d IV (started as early as possible, no later than 1 h after randomization + thiamin (Vit B1) 200mg every 12 h during 3 days. * Control group: Standard of care care for post CA shock according international guidelines. Patient number to be enrolled : 234, Study duration :24 months and 28 days, Inclusion duration : 24 months, Patient participation : duration : 28 days

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is one of the leading causes of mortality in the industrialized world. Bystander CPR before arrival of the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) is associated with an increased chance of survival. During the last decade, the best form of bystander CPR has been debated. Chest Compression Only CPR (CO-CPR) has been advocated as a preferable method in situations where the bystander has no previous knowledge in CPR, both because its believed to be equally efficient but also a simplified form of CPR that could lead to a higher incidence of bystander-CPR. In an initiative to increase CPR rates the American Heart Association has launched public campaigns such as the "hands-only CPR" promoting CO-CPR as an option to S-CPR for adult non-asphyxic cardiac arrest. In the 2015 updates of the European resuscitation council guidelines it states that the confidence in the equivalence between the two methods is not sufficient to change current practice. Whether CO-CPR leads to a survival rate no worse than, or even superior to standard CPR in situations where the bystander has previous CPR training remains unclear. This clinical question remains unanswered while millions of people are trained in CPR worldwide each year. To investigate whether CO-CPR is non-inferior to standard CPR (S-CPR) when performed by a bystander with previous CPR training in witnessed, non-asphyxic cases of OHCA. Superiority testing will also be performed for the purpose of demonstrating a possible increase in survival with CO-CPR.

Newborn infants who require cardiopulmonary resuscitation at birth receive chest compression using a 3-Compression to 1-Ventilation (3:1 C:V) ratio. However, the optimal chest compression technique during cardiopulmonary resuscitation is uncertain and identified as a critical gap in evidence. The International Consensus Statement advises to use the 3:1 C:V ratio based on animal studies, and states that there are no clinical trials to support this approach and called for more research. There continues to be uncertainty about the optimal chest compression technique during cardiopulmonary resuscitation. This trial will compare if in newborn infants with cardiac arrest in the delivery room does providing CC+SI (a new chest compression technique) compared to 3:1 C:V decreases the incidence of all mortality within the initial hospital stay. This will be a multi-centre international cluster randomized trial.

This study will test if a sustained Return of Spontaneous Circulation (ROSC) in patients with cardiac arrest is more frequent when patients receive advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) alone or when they receive ACLS plus a balloon occlusion of the thoracic aorta.

The purpose of this pilot interventional study is to collect preliminary data on administering magnesium sulfate as a neuroprotective medication in patients who achieved Return of Spontaneous Circulation (ROSC) following Cardiac Arrest (CA). The primary aims are to assess the feasibility and safety of administering magnesium and measure serum markers of neuronal injury at prespecified time points in the post-cardiac arrest period. Because this is a pilot study with a limited sample size, the primary objective is to evaluate the precision and stability of the collected measures to inform the design and formal analysis in a larger trial.

WILLEM is a multi-center, prospective and retrospective cohort study. The study will assess the performance of a cloud-based and AI-powered ECG analysis platform, named Willem™, developed to detect arrhythmias and other abnormal cardiac patterns. The main questions it aims to answer are: 1. A new AI-powered ECG analysis platform can automatice the classification and prediction of cardiac arrhythmic episodes at a cardiologist level. 2. This AI-powered ECG analysis can delay or even avoid harmful therapies and severe cardiac adverse events such as sudden death. The prerequisites for inclusion of patients will be the availability of at least one ECG record in raw data, along with patient clinical data and evolution data after more than 1-year follow-up. Cardiac electrical signals from multiple medical devices will be collected by cardiology experts after obtaining the informed consent. Every cardiac electrical signal from every subject will be reviewed by a board-certified cardiologist to label the arrhythmias and patterns recorded in those tracings. In order to obtain tracings of relevant information, \>95% of the subjects enrolled will have rhythm disorders or abnormal ECG's patterns at the time of enrollment.

This randomized clinical trial will test whether an internet-based lifestyle intervention administered through a web app can foster Health Related Quality of Life in patients who survived an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and suffer from these symptoms

Extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR) constitutes a pivotal emergency intervention for cardiac arrest (CA) patients. However, current eligibility criteria and prognostic assessment metrics remain substantially limited, relying predominantly on clinical symptoms and physical signs while lacking objective biomarker data. Integrating reproducible, highly sensitive, and specific proteinaceous and metabolic indicators with ultrastructural platelet alterations may hold significant implications for both ECPR administration and prognostication in CA. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the plasma proteomic and metabolomic characteristics of patients with refractory cardiac arrest before and after ECPR treatment, as well as the characteristics of platelet morphological and structural changes, to search for potential specific markers that can predict CA patients who may benefit from ECPR so as to optimize treatment selection.

When the heart stops pumping during cardiac arrest, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is used to continue pushing blood and providing oxygen to vital organs. CPR involves a combination of chest compressions (to push the blood) and ventilations (to provide oxygen and gas exchange). There is a lot of research that has helped to optimize the provision of chest compressions, however there is considerably less research available to guide ventilations. The current guideline recommendations are based on limited data, and no data that is specific to cardiac arrest patients. There is a recognized need for research to better guide ventilation during CPR. This research will help to better define appropriate ventilation targets for cardiac arrest patients.

This study will assess the feasibility of performing pre-hospital resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta (REBOA) as an adjunct to conventional Advanced Life Support (ALS) in patients suffering from non-traumatic out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). As well as providing valuable insights into the technical feasibility of performing this procedure as part of a resuscitation attempt, the study will also document the beneficial physiological effects of REBOA in this group of patients.

The IH-TTM trial is designed to determine whether survival with a favorable neurological outcome is improved by induced hypothermia at 33°C in comatose critically ill patients admitted after resuscitated in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA). Recent evidence suggests that targeted temperature management (TTM) at 33°C may provide no survival benefits compared to controlled normothermia in unselected patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). However, this evidence is relevant only to OHCA of presumed cardiac origin, chiefly witnessed and immediately followed by resuscitation efforts. Only scant data are available for cardiac arrest (CA) of other origins and for IHCA. In a randomized clinical trial of patients with CA in an initial non-shockable rhythm, the subgroup with IHCA had significantly better outcomes when treated with TTM at 33°C versus controlled normothermia; nevertheless, the sample size was limited. Another randomized controlled trial done specifically in patients with IHCA failed to show benefits of TTM at 33°C compared to controlled normothermia but was underpowered. Thus, whether therapeutic hypothermia is indicated after IHCA remains unclear. IH-TTM will be the largest trial assessing TTM after IHCA.

This randomized controlled trial aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a serious game in improving targeted temperature management (TTM) knowledge and situational awareness among critical care nurses. A total of 120 nurses from adult intensive care units will be randomly assigned to either a control group receiving traditional lecture-based teaching or an experimental group receiving lecture-based teaching combined with a digital serious game. Outcomes will be measured using a TTM knowledge test, a situational awareness scale, and a system usability scale. The findings will provide evidence for the use of serious games as an innovative educational strategy to enhance post-resuscitation care quality and patient safety.

In ECPR, where CPR times often range from 30 to 120 minutes, only patients with good circulation during CPR survive, while non-survivors commonly suffer from anoxic brain injury. The selection process during CPR is challenging causing a general survival rate of just 2 out of 10, and the urgent need for better selection criteria has been emphasized. It it crucial to keep cardiac arrest times as short as possible, pre primed-ECMO can facilitate this. The ECMO treatment and the long CPR times of ECPR can also affect the measurements of the neurologic prognostication guidelines after cardiac arrest, making its validity uncertain in this specific cohort. Further, the long-term neuropsychological follow-up is limited to a few patients, making it uncertain if ECPR gives the survivors good long-term life satisfaction or just a prolonged life. Our overall aim is to optimize and improve the care pathway for ECPR patients by refining patient selection, assessing pre-primed ECMO, validating neurological prognostication guidelines, and understanding long-term outcomes and challenges faced by survivors. Specific Aim 1: Evaluating predictors for good neurological outcomes in ECPR and to develop and validate (internally and externally) an evidence-based selection tool for ECPR. Specific aim 2: To assess the sterility and function of pre-primed ECMO. Specific aim 3: To evaluate the applicability of current guidelines for neurological prognostication after cardiac arrest in ECPR patients, and to assess the predictive value of individual and combined neurological tests in this specific patient population. Specific aim 4: To determine the long-term neuropsychological outcomes, identify the problems survivors experience in daily life, and assess life satisfaction - by comprehensive follow-up visits with validated questionnaires and neuropsychology testing up to 12 years after the ECMO-treated cardiac arrest.

The general objective of this study is to evaluate the clinical impact and safety of focused, point-of-care transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) used during the evaluation of critically-ill patients in the emergency and intensive care settings. The target population for this study are critically-ill patients over the age of 18 who as part of their routine clinical care are receiving a focused TEE. The primary objective of this study is to determine the clinical impact and safety of TEE performed during the evaluation of critically-ill patients in the emergency department and intensive care settings. The secondary objective(s) of this study are to characterize the use of this imaging modality in the subsets of critically-ill patients in shock and cardiac arrest; including but not limited to; description of the frequency of studies, clinical indications, clinician characteristics, echocardiography findings, timing of studies, procedure-related complications and patient outcomes.

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States. Mortality rates of cardiac arrest range from 60-85%, and approximately 80% of survivors are initially comatose. Of those who survive, 50% are left with a permanent neurological disability, and only 10% are able to resume their former lifestyle. Early prognosis of comatose patients after cardiac arrest is critical for management of these patients, yet predicting outcome for these patients remains quite challenging. The primary study objective of SPARE is to assess the value of using a systematic, multi-modal approach for neuroprognostication in the unconscious post-cardiac arrest population. We hypothesize that prognostication using this approach will be significantly improved compared to historical controls. This approach will be novel because: All patients who are unconscious at least 24 hours post-cardiac arrest, whereas previous studies on neurologic outcome tended to have restrictive inclusion criteria, such as no pre-existing neurologic impairment (e.g. dementia or prior cerebrovascular injury), or included an unduly restrictive population, such as patients with a strictly comatose state. The prognostic modalities used to assess patients will be applied at specific time points that will maximize their utility. Patients' families and clinicians will be encouraged to provide adequate time to allow for a delayed recovery, especially in cases of uncertain outcome, thus minimizing the self-fulfilling prophesy bias of early withdrawal of life-sustaining therapies (WLST). This will be particularly pertinent in the comparison of US and Brazil/Italy patients, as the Brazilian and Italian populations are not commonly exposed to premature WLST (as can be the case in the US), one of the major sources of biases in prognostication studies of cardiac arrest due to the self-fulfilling prophecy.

The primary objective of this pilot, pragmatic stepped-wedge cluster randomized trial is to evaluate if a modified cardiac arrest treatment algorithm calling for the administration of the initial amiodarone dose one 2-minute cycle earlier than current guidelines (during the same cycle as the initial dose of epinephrine) improves the time to amiodarone delivery in those with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest due to refractory ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia compared to usual care.

This study is a parallel group multicentre investigator-initiated clinical randomised controlled superiority trial that will include a total of 214 survivors of OHCA. Participants will to be randomized with a 1:1 allocation ratio to either a intervention consisting of a comprehensive initiated tailored rehabilitation intervention focusing on supporting RTW plus usual care compared to usual care alone.