BMI unrelated to TTM treatment outcomes in comatose OHCA survivors

Body mass index (BMI) does not seem to affect short-term neurologic outcomes or mortality risk in comatose survivors of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) treated with targeted temperature management (TTM), a recent study has found.

Researchers conducted a multicentre, prospective, observational study of 1,315 OHCA survivors who were treated with TTM for comatose. A total of 102 patients were underweight (BMI <18.5 kg/m²), 798 were of normal weight (BMI 18.5–24.9 kg/m²), 332 were overweight (BMI 25–29.9 kg/m²), and 73 were obese (BMI ≥30 kg/m²).

Six months after cardiac arrest, 905 patients saw poor neurologic outcomes, while 541 patients died. The frequency of poor neurologic outcomes did not differ across the different BMI categories, and neither did that for 6-month mortality.

Multivariate logistic regression analysis confirmed that BMI was not an important correlate of neurologic outcomes. For example, those who were overweight (odds ratio [OR], 1.444, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.981–2.125; p=0.062) and obese (OR, 1.421, 95 percent CI, 0.684–2.951; p=0.347) did not see a higher likelihood of poor neurologic outcomes at 6 months relative to normal-BMI comparators.

Underweight emerged as a significant risk factor in unadjusted analysis (p=0.026), but its impact was attenuated after multivariable adjustment (OR, 1.668, 95 percent CI, 0.903–3.08; p=0.102).