This article written by Michael W. Donnino et al. and published by the journal Critical Care Medicine in 2014 (Crit Care Med. 2014 August ; 42(8): 1804–1811) aims to determine the association between the percentage of lactate change and outcomes in post cardiac arrest patients.

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) causes a very big number of deaths each year, and results in substantial neurological morbidity in survivors. Doninno et al. base this prospective observational study in the association made that lactate change is associated with in-hospital mortality in post-cardiac arrest patients.

After conducting this study on 100 patients who met the criteria, the authors found that a greater percent lactate change over the first 12 hours after the cardiac arrest was associated with a lower mortality rate and better neurological outcomes.

These differences held up after adjusting for potential confounders indicating that early lactate reduction is an independent predictor of mortality in post-arrest patients. Also, the initial lactate level was higher in non-survivors and those who had poor neurological outcome as compared to survivors and those with good neurological outcome. Survivors had lower lactate measurements at all time points (0, 12, and 24 hours).

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Initial lactate and lactate change in post-cardiac arrest: a multicenter validation stud