Ghrelin for Neuroprotection in Post-Cardiac Arrest Coma: a one-year follow-up of cognitive and psychosocial outcomes.

Background: Effective treatments to improve brain recovery after cardiac arrest are needed. Ghrelin showed efficacy in experimental models and was associated with lower neuron specific enolase levels in the clinical Ghrelin in Coma (GRECO) trial. Here we present cognitive and psychosocial outcomes at one-year follow-up.

Long term functioning with poor neurologic outcome after cardiac arrest.

Aim: Around six percent of comatose patients after cardiac arrest have a Cerebral Performance Categories score of three (CPC3) at six months after the arrest, classified as severe neurological disability. There is limited knowledge regarding the likelihood of further recovery in the cognitive, emotional, and quality of life domains. We aimed to estimate the probability of recovery towards independency.

Ghrelin for Neuroprotection in Post-Cardiac Arrest Coma: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival rates have markedly risen in the last decades, but neurological outcome only improved marginally. Despite research on more than 20 neuroprotective strategies involving patients in comas after cardiac arrest, none have demonstrated unequivocal evidence of efficacy; however, treatment with acyl-ghrelin has shown improved functional and histological brain recovery in experimental models of cardiac arrest and was safe in a wide variety of human study populations.

Objective: To determine safety and potential efficacy of intravenous acyl-ghrelin to improve neurological outcome in patients in a coma after cardiac arrest.

Myoclonus in comatose patients with electrographic status epilepticus after cardiac arrest: Corresponding EEG patterns, effects of treatment and outcomes.

Objective: To clarify the significance of any form of myoclonus in comatose patients after cardiac arrest with rhythmic and periodic EEG patterns (RPPs) by analyzing associations between myoclonus and EEG pattern, response to anti-seizure medication and neurological outcome.

Design: Post hoc analysis of the prospective randomized Treatment of ELectroencephalographic STatus Epilepticus After Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (TELSTAR) trial.

Setting: Eleven ICUs in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Effects of targeted temperature management at 33 °C vs. 36 °C on comatose patients after cardiac arrest stratified by the severity of encephalopathy.

Objectives: To assess neurological outcome after targeted temperature management (TTM) at 33 °C vs. 36 °C, stratified by the severity of encephalopathy based on EEG-patterns at 12 and 24 h.

Design: Post hoc analysis of prospective cohort study.

The Montreal Cognitive Assessment is a valid cognitive screening tool for cardiac arrest survivors.

Aim: The survival rate of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients has increased over the past decades. This gives rise to a growing number of patients with hypoxic-ischemic brain damage and cognitive impairment. Currently, cognitive impairment is underdiagnosed in OHCA patients.

Neuroprotective Treatment of Postanoxic Encephalopathy: A Review of Clinical Evidence.

Postanoxic encephalopathy is the key determinant of death or disability after successful cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Animal studies have provided proof-of-principle evidence of efficacy of divergent classes of neuroprotective treatments to promote brain recovery. However, apart from targeted temperature management (TTM), neuroprotective treatments are not included in current care of patients with postanoxic encephalopathy after cardiac arrest.