title: Therapeutic hypothermia and reliability of somatosensory evoked potentials in predicting outcome after cardiopulmonary arrest.
abstract: The loss of the N20 component on testing median somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEP) has been established as the most reliable indicator of unfavorable prognosis in post-cardiopulmonary arrest patients. With the intervention of therapeutic hypothermia in the management of patients who remain comatose following cardiopulmonary arrest that association is now in dispute. Abandoning SSEP as a key prognostic indicator of neurologic outcome would be a serious loss and cannot be justified.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, George Washington University, 2150 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20037, USA. trothstein@mfa.gwu.edu
authors.forename: Ted Laurence
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Rothstein
mesh_terms: D003128:Coma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy; D003422:Critical Care / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D005073:Evoked Potentials, Somatosensory; D006323:Heart Arrest / Q000150:complications*; D006801:Humans; D007036:Hypothermia, Induced / Q000009:adverse effects*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results