Factors associated with the outcome of out-of-hospital cardiopulmonary arrest among people over 80 years old in Japan

Aim To determine if termination of resuscitation should be considered for older individuals, we sought to identify factors associated with clinical outcome following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) in people ≥80 years old and over. Methods A prospective, population-based, observational study was conducted for ≥80-year-old individuals who experienced out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and to whom resuscitation was provided by emergency responders between January 1, 2005 and December 31, 2012 (n = 377,577). The primary endpoint was 1-month survival. Signal detection analysis was applied to estimate predictive factors among 17 variables. Results Among all out-of-hospital cardiac arrest cases, 59.4% were of cardiac origin, and 1-month survival rate was 3.3%. Following signal detection analysis, cases of both cardiac and non-cardiac origin were categorized into three subgroups defined by return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) and epinephrine use. One-month survival ranged between 1.2 and 41.0% for the three subgroups of cardiac origin and between 2.0 and 41.1% for the three subgroups of non-cardiac origin. Conclusions ROSC was the most significant predictor of 1-month survival among patients with cardiac and non-cardiac OHCA who were ≥80 years old. Absence of ROSC might be an important factor to the termination of resuscitation rule for OHCA in individuals who are ≥80 years old.