Long-term follow-up of cardiac arrest survivors: Protocol of the DESAC (Devenir des survivants d’Arrets Cardiaques) study, a French multicentric prospective cohort

BACKGROUND: While the short-term prognosis of cardiac arrest patients - nearly 250,000 new cases per year in Europe - has been extensively studied, less is known regarding the mid and long-term outcome of survivors. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the DESAC study is to describe mid- and long-term survival rate and functional status of cardiac arrest survivors, and to assess the influence of pre and intra hospital therapeutic strategies on these two outcomes. METHODS: Between Jul 2015 and Oct 2018, adult patients over 18 years who were discharged alive from any intensive care units (public and private hospitals) in the Ile-de-France area (Paris and suburbs, France) after a non-traumatic cardiac arrest were screened for participation in this multicentric study. Survivors were included after they signed (or the proxies) an informed consent before discharge during initial hospitalisation. We calculated that including 600 patients in total would allow an 80% power to demonstrate a 2 years survival rate difference of 10% between patients who did and those who did not receive therapeutic hypothermia after resuscitation. Pre- and in-hospital data related to the circumstances surrounding the event and to the therapeutic interventions (such as cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, defibrillation, emergent coronary revascularization, neuroprotective therapeutics) were collected. After discharge, patients were interviewed at 3 months, 6 months and every year thereafter for a minimum follow-up of 26 months and a maximum follow-up of 48 months. Information on vital status, occurrence of cardiovascular events, medications and a comprehensive assessment of the functional status (qualitive of life as assessed by the Short-Form General Health Survey (SF36) scale, activities of daily living (ADL) scale, neurological Cerebral Performance Categories (CPC) and Overall Performance Categories (OPC) scales, socio-professional activities) were collected at follow-up interviews. DISCUSSION: The DESAC study should provide important information regarding several dimensions of the mid and long-term prognosis of cardiac arrest survivors and on the benefit (and potentially harm) of early therapeutic strategies.