Prognostic value of electroencephalography pattern in prediction of survival and early myoclonus after cardiac arrest

Background evolution of the electroencephalography (eeg) background pattern is a robust contributor to the prediction of poor or good outcome of comatose patients after cardiac arrest (ca). aim the aim of the study was to use eeg as a prognostic tool for the prediction of survival after ca and the incidence of early postanoxic myoclonus. patients and methods we enrolled 40 patients, post‑ca. a 30‑min eeg was performed on all patients, as soon as possible after the patients had arrived in the icu using a portable eeg. results out of the 40 patients studied, 29 (72.5%) were alive while 11 (27.5%) patients were dead: regarding patterns of eeg, 86.2% of alive patients had a benign pattern, while 63.6% of dead patients had a highly malignant pattern. regarding the cerebral performance category (cpc), 79.3% of alive patients had cerebral performance grade 1 (cpc 1) while 54.5% of dead patients had cpc 4. frequency of seizures after resuscitation was significantly higher in dead patients (45.5%) versus 17.2% in alive patients (p = 0.03). conclusion benign eeg patterns and cpc 1 and cpc 2 were correlated to good outcome in patients post‑ca in comparison to malignant eeg pattern and cpc 3 and cpc 4, respectively. presence of early posthypoxic myoclonus had been invariably related to poor outcome.