Outcomes of Adult In-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Treated with Targeted Temperature Management: A Retrospective Cohort Study

AIM: Targeted temperature management (TTM) for in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) is given different recommendation levels within international resuscitation guidelines. We aimed to identify whether TTM would be associated with favourable outcomes following IHCA and to determine which factors would influence the decision to implement TTM. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective observational study in a single medical centre. We included adult patients suffering IHCA between 2006 and 2014. We used multivariable logistic regression analysis to evaluate associations between independent variables and outcomes. RESULTS: We included a total of 678 patients in our analysis; only 22 (3.2%) patients received TTM. Most (81.1%) patients met at least one exclusion criteria for TTM. In all, 144 (21.2%) patients survived to hospital discharge; among them, 60 (8.8%) patients displayed favourable neurological status at discharge. TTM use was significantly associated with favourable neurological outcome (OR: 3.74, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.19–11.00; p-value = 0.02), but it was not associated with survival (OR: 1.41, 95% CI: 0.54–3.66; p-value = 0.48). Arrest in the emergency department was positively associated with TTM use (OR: 22.48, 95% CI: 8.40–67.64; p value < 0.001) and having vasopressors in place at the time of arrest was inversely associated with TTM use (OR: 0.08, 95% CI: 0.004–0.42; p-value = 0.02). CONCLUSION: TTM might be associated with favourable neurological outcome of IHCA patients, irrespective of arrest rhythms. The prevalence of proposed exclusion criteria for TTM was high among IHCA patients, but these factors did not influence the use of TTM in clinical practice or neurological outcomes after IHCA.