Recovery and Survival of Patients After Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: A Literature Review Showcasing the Big Picture of Intensive Care Unit-Related Factors.

Abstract

As an important public health issue, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) requires several stages of high quality medical care, both on-field and after hospital admission. Post-cardiac arrest shock can lead to severe neurological injury, resulting in poor recovery outcome and increasedrisk of death. These characteristics make this conditionone of the most important issues to deal with in post-OHCA patients hospitalized in intensive care units (ICUs). Also, the majority of initial post-resuscitation survivors haveunderlying coronary diseases makingrevascularization procedure another crucial step in early management of these patients. Besides keeping myocardial blood flow at a satisfactory level, other tissues must not be neglected as well, and maintaining mean arterial pressure within optimal range is also preferable. All these procedures can be simplified to a certain level along with using targeted temperature management methods in order to decrease metabolic demands in ICU-hospitalized post-OHCA patients. Additionally, withdrawal of life-sustaining therapy as a controversial ethical topic is under constant re-evaluation due to its possible influence on overall mortality rates in patients initially surviving OHCA. Focusing on all of these important points in process of managing ICU patients is an imperative towards better survival and complete recovery rates.