• Carmen Lopez Soto, Laura Dragoi, Chinthaka C Heyn, Andreas Kramer, Ruxandra Pinto, AdhikariNeill K JNKJDepartment of Critical Care Medicine, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, 2075 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, ON, M4N 3M5, Canada.Interdepartmental Division of Critical Care Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada., and Damon C Scales.
• Department of Critical Care Medicine, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, 2075 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, ON, M4N 3M5, Canada.
• Neurocrit Care. 2020 Feb 1; 32 (1): 206216206-216.

BackgroundPredicting neurological outcome in comatose survivors of cardiac arrest relies on clinical findings, radiological and neurophysiological test results. To evaluate the predictive accuracy of brain computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for prognostication of neurological outcomes after cardiac arrest.MethodsWe searched MEDLINE (database inception to August 2018) and included all observational cohort studies or randomized controlled trials including adult (16 years or older) survivors of cardiac arrest which evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of CT or MRI for predicting neurologic outcome or mortality. Study quality was assessed using the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies 2 tool. All review stages were conducted independently by 2 reviewers, and where possible data were pooled using bivariate meta-analysis. The main outcome was to evaluate the of accuracy of CT and MRI in neuroprognostication of patients after cardiac arrest.ResultsWe included 44 studies that examined brain CT (n = 24) or MRI (n = 21) in 4008 (n per study, 9-398) patients. Decreased grey to white matter ratio on CT (20 studies) was useful for predicting poor neurological outcome (sensitivity 0.44, 95% CI 0.29-0.60; specificity 0.97, 95% CI 0.93-0.99; positive likelihood ratio [LR+] 13.8, 95% CI 6.9-27.7). Similarly, diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) on MRI (16 studies; sensitivity 0.77, 95% CI 0.65-0.85; specificity 0.92, 95% CI 0.85-0.96; LR+ 9.2, 95% CI 5.2-16.4) and DWI and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) MRI (4 studies, sensitivity 0.70, 95% CI 0.43-0.88; specificity 0.95, 95% CI 0.79-0.99; LR+ 13.4, 95% CI 3.5-51.2) were useful for predicting poor neurological outcomes. We found marked heterogeneity in timing of radiological examinations and neurological assessments relative to the cardiac arrest.ConclusionDecreased grey to white matter ratio on CT and DWI or DWI and FLAIR on MRI are useful adjuncts for predicting poor early neurological outcome after cardiac arrest.

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