Cardiac arrest centres for patients with non-traumatic cardiac arrest: A systematic review

Regionalisation and organised pathways of care using specialist centre hospitals can improve outcomes for critically ill patients. Cardiac arrest centre hospitals (CAC) may optimise the delivery of post-resuscitation care. The International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) has called for a review of the current evidence base.

This systematic review aimed to assess the effect of cardiac arrest centres for patients with non-traumatic cardiac arrest.

Articles were included if they met the prospectively registered (PROSPERO) inclusion criteria. These followed the PICOST framework for ILCOR systematic reviews. A strict definition for a CAC was used, reflecting current position statements and clinical practice. MEDLINE, Embase and the Cochrane Library were searched using pre-determined criteria from inception to 31 December 2023. Risk of bias was assessed using Cochrane's Risk of Bias tool and ROBINS-I. The certainty of evidence for each outcome was assessed using the GRADE approach. Substantial heterogeneity precluded meta-analysis and a narrative synthesis with visualisation of effect estimates in forest plots was performed.

Sixteen studies met eligibility criteria, including data on over 145,000 patients. One was a randomised controlled trial (RCT) at low risk of bias and the remainder were observational studies, all at moderate or serious risk of bias. All studies included adults with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. One study used initial shockable rhythm as an inclusion criterion and most studies (n = 12) included patients regardless of prehospital ROSC status. Two studies, including the RCT, excluded patients with ST elevation. Survival to hospital discharge with a favourable neurological outcome was reported by 11 studies and favoured CAC care in all observational studies, but the RCT showed no difference. Survival to 30 days with a favourable neurological outcome was reported by two observational studies and favoured CAC care in both. Survival to hospital discharge was reported by 13 observational studies and generally favoured CAC care. Survival to 30 days was reported by two studies, where the observational study favoured CAC care, but the RCT showed no difference.

This review supports a weak recommendation that adults with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest are cared for at CACs based on very low certainty of evidence. Randomised evidence has not confirmed the benefits of CACs found in observational studies, however this RCT was a single trial in a very specific setting and a population without ST elevation on post-ROSC ECG. The role of CACs in shockable and non-shockable subgroups, direct versus secondary transfer, as well as the impact of increased transport time and bypassing local hospitals remains unclear.