Performance of the ERC/ESICM-recommendations for neuroprognostication after cardiac arrest: insights from a prospective multicenter cohort

Brief abstract: In a multicentre network of 28 ICUs in France and Belgium, all comatose patients who fulfilled the 2021 ERC-ESICM criteria for poor outcome after cardiac arrest died or survived with severe neurological disability, even after excluding patients with active WLST to limit self-fulfilling prophecy bias. However, in almost half of the patients, these criteria were not fulfilled, resulting in an indeterminate outcome; in these patients, normal NSE levels and benign EEG predicted neurological recovery, helping reduce prognostic uncertainty.