Older Survivors of In-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Have Better Prognoses Than Expected

Survival to hospital discharge after in-hospital cardiac arrest has gotten substantially longer during the past decade (JW Hosp Med Nov 14 2012). However, for older patients who experience in-hospital cardiac arrest, data on long-term outcomes are limited.

In this study, investigators evaluated nearly 7000 patients (age, ≥65) who survived to hospital discharge after in-hospital cardiac arrest between 2000 and 2008. Half of patients had mild or no neurological disability at hospital discharge. Long-term survival rates — 59% at 1 year, 50% at 2 years, and 44% at 3 years — approached survival rates of heart failure patients after hospital discharge at 3 years. At 1 year, 34% of patients had not been readmitted. As expected, greater neurological…