Association between echocardiography utilization and prognosis in patients with cardiac arrest

Despite efforts to develop treatment technology for cardiac arrest (CA), CA incidence and mortality rates are still high. [1,2]A recent study of CA patients in emergency departments revealed that the incidence of CA is increasing annually, and the in-hospital survival rate of CA patients is only approximately 28.7%. [3]Echocardiography has been widely used as an important monitoring tool in critical care and helps to identify the cause of shock, monitor hemodynamics, and guide fluid therapy utilization. [4]One study reported that approximately one-third of patients underwent formal echocardiography during hospitalization in the intensive care unit (ICU). [5]owever, the clinical value of echocardiography in the management of CA patients has not been confirmed, especially in critically ill patients.Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the association between the use of echocardiography and the prognosis of hospitalized CA patients in the ICU.This was a retrospective study based on data from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care IV (MIMIC-IV) database, which was developed and maintained by the Laboratory for Computational Physiology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with ethical approval. [6]atients meeting the following criteria were included in our study: (1) records of admission to the ICU; (2) aged over 18 years at the time of first admission; (3) diagnosed with CA according to the International Classifi cation of Diseases, 9th and 10th Revision (427.5 [cardiac arrest] for the 9th Revision, and I46 [cardiac arrest], I46.2 [cardiac arrest due to underlying cardiac condition], I46.8 [cardiac arrest due to other underlying condition], and I46.9 [cardiac arrest, cause unspecified] for the 10th Revision).A total of 2,041 adult patients in the MIMIC-IV were diagnosed with CA.A total of 1,772 patients were admitted to the ICU and were eligible