Figure 3.

Withholding life-sustaining therapies.

This figure illustrates the specific interventions that were withheld as part of decisions to limit life-sustaining treatment. The most commonly withheld therapies included cardiopulmonary resuscitation, vasopressor administration or dose escalation, mechanical ventilation or oxygenation support, and renal replacement therapy. More rarely, decisions involved the absence of surgery, transfusion, antimicrobial therapy, further diagnostic tests, or re-admission to the ICU.