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Occurrence and timing of withdrawal of life-sustaining measures in traumatic brain injury patients: a CENTER-TBI study

2021; Springer Science+Business Media; Volume: 47; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/s00134-021-06484-1

1432-1238

Ernest van Veen, Mathieu van der Jagt, Giuseppe Citerio, Nino Stocchetti, Diederik Gommers, Alex Burdorf, David Menon, Andrew I.R. Maas, Erwin J. O. Kompanje, Hester F. Lingsma, Cecilia Åkerlund, Krisztina Amrein, Nada Anđelić, Lasse Andreassen, Audny Anke, Anna Degli Antoni, Gérard Audibert, Philippe Azouvi, Maria Luisa Azzolini, Ronald Bartels, Pál Barzó, Romuald Beauvais, Ronny Beer, Bo‐Michael Bellander, Antonio Belli, Habib Benali, Maurizio Berardino, Luigi Beretta, Morten Blaabjerg, Peter Bragge, Alexandra Bražinová, Vibeke Brinck, Joanne Brooker, Camilla Brorsson, András Büki, Monika Bullinger, Manuel Cabeleira, Alessio Caccioppola, Emiliana Calappi, Maria Rosa Calvi, Peter Cameron, Guillermo Carbayo Lozano, Marco Carbonara, Simona Cavallo, Giorgio Chevallard, Arturo Chieregato, Giuseppe Citerio, Hans Clusmann, Mark Coburn, Jonathan Coles, D. James Cooper, Marta Correia, Amra Čović, Nicola Curry, Endre Czeiter, Marek Czosnyka, Claire Dahyot Fizelier, Paul Dark, Helen Dawes, Véronique De Keyser, Vincent Degos, Françesco Della Corte, Hugo den Boogert, Bart Depreitere, Đula Đilvesi, Abhishek Dixit, Emma Donoghue, Jens P. Dreier, Guy Loup Dulière, Ari Ercole, Patrick Esser, Erzsébet Ezer, Martin Fabricius, Valery L. Feigin, Kelly Foks, Shirin Frisvold, Alex Furmanov, Pablo Gagliardo, Damien Galanaud, Dashiell Gantner, Guoyi Gao, Pradeep George, Alexandre Ghuysen, Lelde Giga, Ben Glocker, Jagoš Golubović, Pedro A. Gómez, Johannes Gratz, Benjamin Gravesteijn, Francesca Grossi, Russell L. Gruen, Deepak Gupta, Juanita A. Haagsma, Iain Haitsma, Raimund Helbok, Eirik Helseth, Lindsay Horton, Jilske Huijben, Peter J. Hutchinson, Bram Jacobs, Stefan Jankowski, Mike Jarrett, Ji Y. Jiang, Faye Johnson, Kelly Jones, Mladen Karan, Angelos G. Kolias, Erwin J. O. Kompanje, Daniel Kondziella, Evgenios Kornaropoulos, Lars Owe Koskinen, Noémi Kovács, Ana Kowark, Alfonso Lagares, Linda Lanyon, Steven Laureys, Fiona Lecky, Didier Ledoux, Rolf Lefering, Valérie Legrand, Aurélie Lejeune, Leon Levi, Roger Lightfoot, Hester F. Lingsma, Andrew I.R. Maas, Ana M. Castaño‐León, Marc Maegele, Marek Majdán, Alex Manara, Geoffrey T. Manley, Costanza Martino, Hugues Maréchal, Julia Mattern, Catherine McMahon, Béla Melegh, David Menon, Tomas Menovsky, Ana Mikolić, Benoît Misset, Visakh Muraleedharan, Lynnette Murray, Ancuța Negru, David Nelson, Virginia Newcombe, Daan Nieboer, József Nyirádi, Otesile Olubukola, Matej Orešič, Fabrizio Ortolano, Aarno Palotie, Paul M. Parizel, Jean‐François Payen, Natascha Perera, Vincent Perlbarg, Paolo Persona, Wilco C. Peul, Anna Piippo-Karjalainen, Matti Pirinen, Dana Pisică, Horia Pleș, Suzanne Polinder, Iñigo Pomposo, Jussi P. Posti, Louis Puybasset, Andreea Rădoi, Arminas Ragauskas, Rahul Raj, Malinka Rambadagalla, Isabel Retel Helmrich, Jonathan R. Rhodes, Sylvia Richardson, Sophie Richter, Samuli Ripatti, Saulius Ročka, Cecilie Røe, Olav Røise, Jonathan Rosand, Jeffrey V. Rosenfeld, Christina Rosenlund, Guy Rosenthal, Rolf Rossaint, Sandra Rossi, Daniel Rueckert, Martin Rusňák, Juan Sahuquillo, Oliver Sakowitz, Renán Sánchez-Porras, János Sándor, Nadine Schäfer, Silke Schmidt, Herbert Schöechl, Guus Schoonman, Rico Frederik Schou, Elisabeth Schwendenwein, Charlie Sewalt, Toril Skandsen, Peter Smielewski, Abayomi Sorinola, Emmanuel A. Stamatakis, Simon Stanworth, Robert D. Stevens, William Stewart, Ewout W. Steyerberg, Nino Stocchetti, Nina Sundström, Riikka Takala, Viktória Tamás, Tomas Tamošuitis, Mark Steven Taylo, Braden Te Ao, Olli Tenovuo, Alice Theadom, Matt Thomas, Dick Tibboel, Marjolein Timmers, Christos Tolias, Tony Trapani, Cristina Maria Tudora, Andreas Unterberg, Peter Vajkoczy, Shirley Vallance, Egils Valeinis, Zoltán Vámos, Mathieu van der Jagt, Gregory Van der Steen, Joukje van der Naalt, Jeroen T.J.M. van Dijck, Thomas A. van Essen, Wim Van Hecke, Caroline van Heugten, Dominique Van Praag, Ernest van Veen, Thijs Vande Vyvere, Roel P. J. van Wijk, Alessia Vargiolu, Emmanuel Vega, Kimberley Velt, Jan Verheyden, Paul Vespa, Anne Vik, Rimantas Vilcinis, Victor Volovici, Nicole von Steinbüchel, Daphne Voormolen, Petar Vuleković, Kevin Wang, Eveline Wiegers, Guy Williams, Lindsay Wilson, Stefan Winzeck, Stefan Wolf, Zhihui Yang, Peter Ylén, Alexander Younsi, Frederick A. Zeiler, Veronika Zelinkova, Agate Ziverte, Tommaso Zoerle,

Traumatic Brain Injury and Neurovascular Disturbances

In patients with severe brain injury, withdrawal of life-sustaining measures (WLSM) is common in intensive care units (ICU). WLSM constitutes a dilemma: instituting WLSM too early could result in death despite the possibility of an acceptable functional outcome, whereas delaying WLSM could unnecessarily burden patients, families, clinicians, and hospital resources. We aimed to describe the occurrence and timing of WLSM, and factors associated with timing of WLSM in European ICUs in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI). The CENTER-TBI Study is a prospective multi-center cohort study. For the current study, patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) admitted to the ICU and aged 16 or older were included. Occurrence and timing of WLSM were documented. For the analyses, we dichotomized timing of WLSM in early (< 72 h after injury) versus later (≥ 72 h after injury) based on recent guideline recommendations. We assessed factors associated with initiating WLSM early versus later, including geographic region, center, patient, injury, and treatment characteristics with univariable and multivariable (mixed effects) logistic regression. A total of 2022 patients aged 16 or older were admitted to the ICU. ICU mortality was 13% (n = 267). Of these, 229 (86%) patients died after WLSM, and were included in the analyses. The occurrence of WLSM varied between regions ranging from 0% in Eastern Europe to 96% in Northern Europe. In 51% of the patients, WLSM was early. Patients in the early WLSM group had a lower maximum therapy intensity level (TIL) score than patients in the later WLSM group (median of 5 versus 10) The strongest independent variables associated with early WLSM were one unreactive pupil (odds ratio (OR) 4.0, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.3–12.4) or two unreactive pupils (OR 5.8, CI 2.6–13.1) compared to two reactive pupils, and an Injury Severity Score (ISS) if over 41 (OR per point above 41 = 1.1, CI 1.0–1.1). Timing of WLSM was not significantly associated with region or center. WLSM occurs early in half of the patients, mostly in patients with severe TBI affecting brainstem reflexes who were severely injured. We found no regional or center influences in timing of WLSM. Whether WLSM is always appropriate or may contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy requires further research and argues for reluctance to institute WLSM early in case of any doubt on prognosis.