title: Mode of death after admission to an intensive care unit following cardiac arrest.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine the mode of death in patients admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) after cardiac arrest who died before hospital discharge.
  
  
  METHODS
  Prospectively defined retrospective review of a database and individual patient medical records and ICU charts.
  
  
  METHODS
  Eleven-bed multidisciplinary intensive care unit in a general hospital in the United Kingdom.
  
  
  METHODS
  All patients admitted to ICU between February 1998 and July 2003 after a cardiac arrest in the previous 24 h.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The outcome at hospital discharge and mode of death in non-survivors were recorded. Based on the mode of death, non-survivors were placed in one of three groups: multiple organ failure death, neurological death or cardiovascular death. Two hundred and five patients were admitted to ICU after a cardiac arrest; 113 (55.1%) after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and 92 (44.9%) after in-hospital cardiac arrest. One hundred and twenty-six (61.5%) patients died before hospital discharge and of these 58 (46.0%) died due to neurological injury. After cardiac arrest, 22.9% of the in-hospital patients and 67.7% of the out-of-hospital patients died due to neurological injury, irrespective of the primary cardiac arrest arrhythmia.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Two-thirds of the patients dying after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest died due to neurological injury and this proportion was approximately the same for ventricular fibrillation/ventricular tachycardia and pulseless electrical activity/asystole. Approximately a quarter of the patients dying after in-hospital cardiac arrest died due to neurological injury.
authors.affiliation: Intensive Care Unit, Royal United Hospital, Combe Park, BA1 3NG, Bath, UK.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Laver
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Farrow
authors.forename: Duncan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Turner
authors.forename: Jerry
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nolan
mesh_terms: D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000209:etiology* / Q000401:mortality*; D016887:Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation; D002423:Cause of Death; D006323:Heart Arrest / Q000150:complications / Q000401:mortality* / Q000628:therapy; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009102:Multiple Organ Failure / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology