Perceptions of Patients and Their Families Regarding Limitation of Therapeutic Effort in the Intensive Care Unit

Withdrawal/Withholding of Life-Sustaining Therapies: Limitation of Therapeutic Effort in the Intensive Care Unit

Background/Objectives: The change in critically ill patients makes limitation of therapeutic effort (LTE) a widespread practice when therapeutic goals cannot be achieved. We aimed to describe the application of LTE in a post-surgical Intensive Care Unit (ICU), analyze the measures used, the characteristics of the patients, and their evolution. Methods: Retrospective observational study, including all patients to whom LTE was applied in a postsurgical ICU between January 2021 and December 2022. The LTE defined were brain death, withdrawal of measures, and withholding. Withholding limitations included orders for no cardiopulmonary resuscitation, no orotracheal intubation, no reintubation, no tracheostomy, no renal replacement therapies, and no vasoactive support. Patient and ICU admission data were related to the applied LTE. Results: Of the 2056 admitted, LTE protocols were applied to 106 patients. The prevalence of LTE in the ICU was 5.1%. Data were analyzed in 80 patients. A total of 91.2% of patients had been admitted in an emergency situation, and 56.2% had been admitted after surgery. The most widespread limitation was treatment withholding (83.8%) compared to withdrawal (13.8%). No differences were found regarding who made the decision and the type of limitation employed. However, patients with the limitation of no intubation had a longer stay (p = 0.025). Additionally, the order of not starting or increasing vasopressor support resulted in a longer hospital stay (p = 0.007) and a significantly longer stay until death (p = 0.044). Conclusions: LTE is a frequent measure in critically ill patient management and is less common in the postoperative setting. The most widespread measure was withholding, with the do-not-resuscitate order being the most common. The decision was made mainly by the medical team and the family, respecting the wishes of the patients. A joint patient-centered approach should be made in these decisions to avoid futile treatment and ensure end-of-life comfort.

Comparison of different clinical risk scores to predict long-term survival and neurological outcome in adults after cardiac arrest: results from a prospective cohort study

Background

Several scoring systems have been used to predict short-term outcome in patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), including the disease-specific OHCA and CAHP (Cardiac Arrest Hospital Prognosis) scores, as well as the general severity-of-illness scores Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) and Simplified Acute Physiology Score II (SAPS II). This study aimed to assess the prognostic performance of these four scores to predict long-term outcomes (≥ 2 years) in adult cardiac arrest patients.

Methods

This is a prospective single-centre cohort study including consecutive cardiac arrest patients admitted to intensive care in a Swiss tertiary academic medical centre. The primary endpoint was 2-year mortality. Secondary endpoints were neurological outcome at 2 years post-arrest assessed by Cerebral Performance Category with CPC 1–2 defined as good and CPC 3–5 as poor neurological outcome, and 6-year mortality.

Results

In 415 patients admitted to intensive care, the 2-year mortality was 58.1%, with 96.7% of survivors showing good neurological outcome. The 6-year mortality was 82.5%. All four scores showed good discriminatory performance for 2-year mortality, with areas under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUROC) of 0.82, 0.87, 0.83 and 0.81 for the OHCA, CAHP, APACHE II and SAPS II scores. The results were similar for poor neurological outcome at 2 years and 6-year mortality.

Conclusion

This study suggests that two established cardiac arrest-specific scores and two severity-of-illness scores provide good prognostic value to predict long-term outcome after cardiac arrest and thus may help in early goals-of-care discussions.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13613-022-01048-y.