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Invited Commentary
May 4, 2022

Treatment of Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest

Author Affiliations
  • 1Médecine Intensive Réanimation, CHU de Nantes, Nantes, Pays De Loire, France
  • 2University of Washington-Harborview Center for Prehospital Emergency Care, Seattle
JAMA Cardiol. 2022;7(6):643-644. doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2022.0803

Achieving and maintaining good neurologic function and health-related quality of life after discharge are key goals for those who are affected by or care for those with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Inaccurate early assessment of prognosis and consequent withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment can limit patients’ opportunities to achieve these goals. As emergency department and intensive care practitioners, we are aware that caregivers sometimes do not perform key diagnostic procedures (eg, emergency coronary angiography) and sometimes initiate early withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment in part out of their own or family members’ concern that a resuscitated patient will die or have poor functional outcome regardless of whether additional tests or treatments are used.

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