Confounders for prognostic accuracy of neuron-specific enolase after cardiac arrest: A retrospective cohort study.

AIM: To evaluate neuron-specific enolase (NSE) thresholds for prediction of neurological outcome after cardiac arrest and to analyze the influence of hemolysis and confounders.

METHODS: Retrospective analysis from a cardiac arrest registry. Determination of NSE serum concentration and hemolysis-index (h-index) 48-96 hours after cardiac arrest. Evaluation of neurological outcome using the Cerebral Performance Category score (CPC) at hospital discharge. Separate analyses considering CPC 1-3 and CPC 1-2 as good neurological outcome. Analysis of specificity and sensitivity for poor and good neurological outcome prediction with and without exclusion of hemolytic samples (h-index larger than 50).

RESULTS: Among 356 survivors three days after cardiac arrest, hemolysis was detected in 28 samples (7.9%). At a threshold of 60 µg/L, NSE predicted poor neurological outcome (CPC 4-5) in all samples with a specificity of 92% (86%-95%) and sensitivity of 73% (66%-79%). In non-hemolytic samples, specificity was 94% (89%-97%) and sensitivity 70% (62%- 76%). At a threshold of 100 µg/L, specificity was 98% (95%-100%, all samples) and 99% (95%-100%, non-hemolytic samples), and sensitivity 58% (51%-65%) and 55% (47%-63%), respectively. Possible confounders for elevated NSE in patients with good neurological outcome were ECMO, malignancies, blood transfusions and acute brain diseases. Nine patients with NSE below 17 µg/L had CPC 5, all had plausible death causes other than hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy.

CONCLUSIONS: NSE concentrations higher than 100 µg/L predicted poor neurological outcome with high specificity. An NSE less than 17 µg/L indicated absence of severe hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. Hemolysis and other confounders need to be considered. Institutional protocol number: The local ethics committee (board name: Ethikkommission der Charite) approved this study by the number: EA2/066/23, approval date: 28th June 2023, study title "'ROSC' - Resuscitation Outcome Study."