Impact of pulse pressure on clinical outcome in extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (eCPR) patients

BACKGROUND: Hemodynamic response to successful extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (eCPR) is not uniform. Pulse pressure (PP) as a correlate for myocardial damage or recovery from it, might be a valuable tool to estimate the outcome of these patients. METHODS: We report retrospective data of a single-centre registry of eCPR patients, treated at the Interdisciplinary Medical Intensive Care Unit at the Medical Centre, University of Freiburg, Germany, between 01/2017 and 01/2020. The association between PP of the first 10 days after eCPR and hospital survival was investigated. Moreover, patients were divided into three groups according to their PP [low (0–9 mmHg), mid (10–29 mmHg) and high (≥ 30 mmHg)] at each time point. RESULTS: One hundred forty-three patients (age 63 years, 74.1% male, 40% OHCA, average low flow time 49 min) were analysed. Overall hospital survival rate was 28%. A low PP both early after eCPR (after 1, 3, 6 and 12 h) and after day 1 to day 8 was associated with reduced hospital survival. At each time point (1 h to day 5) the classification of patients into a low, mid and high PP group was able to categorize the patients for a low (5–20%), moderate (20–40%) and high (50–70%) survival rate. A multivariable analysis showed that the mean PP of the first 24 h was an independent predictor for survival (p = 0.008). CONCLUSION: In this analysis, PP occurred to be a valuable parameter to estimate survival and maybe support clinical decision making in the further course of patients after eCPR. GRAPHIC ABSTRACT: [Image: see text] SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00392-021-01838-7.