The relevance of severity scores in predicting outcome after cardiac arrest

Cardiac arrest is a major health and economic problem, with a mortality rate remaining unacceptably high. Prediction of outcome in this setting, especially if determined in the early phase after hospital admission, would allow clinicians to prioritize rapid therapeutic interventions, to better stratify patients' severity of illness, to reconsider the intensity of care and to readdress resource utilization. This article focuses on the possibility of using a severity-of-illness score, combining the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score and the Full Outline of Unresponsiveness score, to predict morbidity and mortality after cardiac arrest.