Among patients admitted to the ICU following resuscitation from cardiac arrest, arterial hyperoxia was independently associated with increased in-hospital mortality compared with either hypoxia or normoxia.

Background-Laboratory and recent clinical data suggest that hyperoxemia after resuscitation from cardiac arrest is harmful; however, it remains unclear if the risk of adverse outcome is a threshold effect at a specific supranormal oxygen tension, or is a dose-dependent association. We aimed to define the relationship between supranormal oxygen tension and outcome in postresuscitation patients. Methods and Results-This was a multicenter cohort study using the Project IMPACT database (intensive care units at 120 US hospitals). Inclusion criteria were age Ͼ17 years, nontrauma, cardiopulmonary resuscitation preceding intensive care unit arrival, and postresuscitation arterial blood gas obtained. We excluded patients with hypoxia or severe oxygenation impairment. We defined the exposure by the highest partial pressure of arterial oxygen (PaO 2 ) over the first 24 hours in the ICU. The primary outcome measure was in-hospital mortality. We tested the association between PaO 2 (continuous variable) and mortality using multivariable logistic regression adjusted for patient-oriented covariates and potential hospital effects. Of 4459 patients, 54% died. The median postresuscitation PaO 2 was 231 (interquartile range 149 to 349) mm Hg. Over ascending ranges of oxygen tension, we found significant linear trends of increasing in-hospital mortality and decreasing survival as functionally independent. On multivariable analysis, a 100 mm Hg increase in PaO 2 was associated with a 24% increase in mortality risk (odds ratio 1.24 [95% confidence interval 1.18 to 1.31]. We observed no evidence supporting a single threshold for harm from supranormal oxygen tension. Conclusion-In this large sample of postresuscitation patients, we found a dose-dependent association between supranormal oxygen tension and risk of in-hospital death. (Circulation. 2011;123:2717-2722.)

The incidence of SE increased nearly fourfold with relatively unchanged mortality. Gender and racial disparities exist in the incidence of SE, and age is an important predictor of mortality.