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Therapeutic hypothermia is commonly used in comatose survivors’ post-cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). It is unknown whether outcome predictors perform accurately after hypothermia treatment.

Post-CPR comatose survivors were prospectively enrolled. Six outcome predictors [pupillary and corneal reflexes, motor response to pain, and somatosensory-evoked potentials (SSEP) >72 h; status myoclonus, and serum neuron-specific enolase (NSE) levels <72 h] were systematically recorded. Poor outcome was defined as death or vegetative state at 3 months. Patients were considered “sedated” if they received any sedative drugs ≤12 h prior the 72 h neurological assessment.

Of 85 prospectively enrolled patients, 53 (62%) underwent hypothermia. Furthermore, 53 of the 85 patients (62 …