Background: Survival improvement of survivors of Out of Hospital Sudden Cardiac Death (OHSCD), that were dismissed from the hospital, is not well defined, despite the efforts to ameliorate their management and therapy.
Aim: Our aim was to characterize the patients admitted into Intensive Coronary Care Unit (ICCU) after aborted OHSCD and verify predictor variables of their outcome.
We retrospectively recorded clinical, demographic and outcome data of consecutive patients that were hospitalized from 1-1-2009 trough 15 -12-2014 into ICCU after aborted OHCSD and discharged alive.
Ninety nine patients were admitted into ICCU after aborted OHSCD; 41 patients (41.4%) died and the discharged alive 58 patients were our study population.
Men were 47 (81%) with a mean age of 51±15 years and women 11 (19%) with a mean age of 55±13.6 years (p=ns). Fifteen patients died 16.5±18.1 months (range 1-50 months) after their discharge.
During 1 year follow-up 11 patients (18.9%) died (Group A) and 47 (81%) patients survived (Group B). No significant survival differences were found between the 2 patients groups according to the presence of Ischemic Heart Disease, Congestive Heart Failure, Valvular Heart Disease, Dilated Cardiomyopathy, Hypertension, Diabetes Mellitus, Ventricular Fibrillation as initial heart rhythm, the use of therapeutic hypothermia and implantation of Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator. Only the presence of Asystole as initial heart rhythm was a predictor of worse prognosis.
Conclusion: Most of the patients who were discharge alive after OHSCD were alive after 1 year follow-up; Asystole has a long term worse prognosis beyond the patient hospitalization.
